Covid-19 isolation – Dear Liza

Auntie Katie Takes Her Books to the People

Dear Liza,

This past weekend Portland hosted, among many other things, The Rose City Comic Con. This is a convention for people who love comic books and the characters who` live in them. I’m sure thousands of people went. We didn’t, because we are concerned about indoor crowds in this age of Covid.

Auntie Katie, who runs a comic book and graphic novel book shop, Books with Pictures, would usually have a big table at the Comic Con. But she is concerned about Covid, too. So she took her books outside!

She posted on Facebook and Instagram to let people know that she and her books would be at the Food Truck Pod on SE 28th, just across the street from The SideStreet Arts Gallery. She and one of her staff, Kitty, showed up with boxes of books and shelves to put them on.

In the midst of the Saturday evening crowds, they set up shop. And as the Rose City Comic Con shut down across town, the crowds came to the food court to see Katie and buy her books!

It was quite a thing to see. We stuck around for long enough to buy a book and watch the crowds form, and then headed to the grocery store and the home.
What a day!

Love,

Grandma Judy

…And Speaking of Portland Bliss

Dear Liza,

It has been three-plus years since my retirement and it seems that I am just now getting the hang of it. It took a while, certainly, and I still might not have it right. After 40-plus years of working, it has been hard to slow down.

I actually used to get depressed at the end of the school year. I was a teacher, after all. And what is a teacher who isn’t teaching? The idea that we ARE what we DO, that our essential being is defined by work, had gotten into my head.

So I tried to stay equally as busy after I retired. I spent every day at the Historical Society and set a goal of writing a historical children’s story. I loved the research but my results were ….. unsatisfactory.

Then Covid hit, and the rest of the world retired, too. The talk was all about finding peace in idleness, not living to work, and making small happinesses within yourself. It felt right.

Being given permission to be ”lazy”, to not have to change the world all at once, was a gift.

So I can take a whole morning to read Jane Eyre in the park. I can sit by my garden and enjoy the company of the bees. I can think good thoughts and not demand that they funnel into immediate ACTION. I can live just to live, for a while.

And so can you.

Love,

Grandma Judy

First Jog

Dear Liza,

Between the Covid lockdown and our cold wet weather, it has been a pretty slothful winter. There have been short walks to the market and out for hot dogs, but no long hikes to Sellwood or the Pearl District, and lots of cookies and potato chips. I was feeling like a bear in hibernation, or a kitten on a lap….Comfy, but a bit overstuffed.

The spring weather, along with jeans that just stopped fitting, has inspired me to get off my Grandma Judy butt and get some exercise. I bought new sneakers (my old ones literally fell apart just after the shut down) and Aunt Bridgett and I headed out.

Years ago, we started running. We’d walk to the Hartnell College track, jog a few miles around, and walk back home. But we went too fast, or twisted a foot, and the joy got lost. We stopped.

When Auntie Bridgett and I decided to start again, we had to dig our old exercise clothes out of the bottom of the drawers. We did lots of stretches so we didn’t break anything, and we set off around the neighborhood. It was fun going down streets, waving at folks out gardening.

We stopped (after a paltry ten blocks, but it’s a start!) at our garden plot, to water and check things out. It felt so good to be moving! We ended our day on a healthy note, with a chicken and beet salad with all sorts of greens and nuts for dinner.

And this morning, I woke up feeling… Fabulous! No strains, so sore legs, just clear headed and healthy. So, after our writing time and French lesson on Duolingo, we headed out again. We went a block further and ran a bit faster, and got home with no damage done.

I will keep you posted on our progress. Stay well!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Still Growing, Part 2

Dear Liza,

Last summer, a few months after the Covid shutdown, I started painting with an online group organized by Ruth Inman. It made sense that we should start painting with flowers…. who doesn’t like flowers?

My skills weren’t very good, and I was scared of making mistakes, but being with an old friend put me at ease. The tremor in my hand got in the way a bit, but I’d just power through, realizing that the wiggly lines could be just part of the picture. Flowers don’t have straight lines, anyway.

As the year passed, Ruth would give us challenges to use different materials, like candy wrappers or other recycled papers. These let me realize that ART didn’t have to mean making a perfect painting every time. The making, the process, was the main thing. If other people liked it when you were done, that was a bonus. But it was not the main goal.

Realizing that, I got more confident. I also came to understand that different media work in different ways. Watercolors always show through, so planning is crucial. Acrylics are more forgiving and will cover up mistakes. Collage needs a careful hand but is amazingly freeing. And all of these can be used in the same piece, if you like!

This is my new favorite, a remembering of a drive along the Willamette. As I sat on a bench looking at Mt. Hood far away across the river, I planned out how I would construct it. Watercolors for the sky and ground, THEN the distant mountain (out of a bit of Kleenex box), THEN the flowers/ trees in front of it, then the river and dogs. I found the note in the sky folded up in our picnic table, and wanted to include it.

I built up from the background to the foreground, and was pleased with how it turned out. The snow on the mountain is a tiny bit of Posca marker.

I’ve learned a lot this year. Mostly, I learned that I am still learning, which is a good thing.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Seeds In!

Dear Liza,

Finally! After months of anticipation, we have seeds and a plant in the ground at the allotment. The weatherman has promised we will have no more frost this spring, so it was time to commit.

Auntie Bridgett went along with me, though she is not a gardener; there is too much mud involved for her liking. But she wanted to draw the garden, keep me company, and make notes. That’s what she does.

We bundled up against the chilly morning, carrying the seeds, the lavender plant, and nifty home made garden markers along in a bag. We chatted briefly with other gardeners. After so long in isolation we long for companionship, but we were all there on our own missions. The camellia tree had given us more blossoms, and I realized it may be a good idea to trim it back just a wee bit, to give us more space and sunlight. All good relationships need a little space, right?

The soil was very lumpy, and I spent a lot of time crumbling the clods between my fingers, making a smoother bed for my seed babies. I sprinkled the seeds in and patted the soil gently, laying down a bit of of decomposed straw over the top to keep them damp.

When my back was tired and my fingers were numb, it was time to lock the tools back in the shed and head out. Light rain is predicted for a few days, and should get the seedlings started. I am so excited for what happens next!

That marker says “LETTUCE”. That burst of green is a lavender transplant.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Progress in The Garden Journal

Dear Liza,

I haven’t done much work in the garden, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about it! My garden journal gives me a place to put my dreams and imaginings down in a art-y, fun, not-having-to-think-too-much-about- it sort of way.

So when the rain comes down and the garden plot is all mud, I dream and draw, get out the collage glue and the watercolors, and have fun making up what I WANT to be doing.

Hopefully, by the time I run out of ideas to paint, spring will have sprung enough to where I can put seeds in the ground.

I am anxious for spring to come and to be able to watch my seeds grow.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Monopoly!

Dear Liza,

Since we are all inside together more, we have been playing more games. Auntie Bridgett and I play Bananagrams, and we three all play Scrabble.

I should have known it would, eventually, come to this. Last night we played Monopoly.

Auntie Bridgett spent a lot of time in Jail…

We tried playing it together years ago, but Grandpa Nelson’s tendency to just wipe us out, every time, sort of took the fun out of it. So, we put the game in the cupboard. The way, way, back of the cupboard.

I was the top hat, Auntie Bridgett the dog, and Grandpa Nelson, the race car

And last night, after Straight from New York pizza and a nice Beaujolais, we tried again. Determined to not repeat former mistakes, I went in with the strategy of buying everything I landed on, even if I had to mortgage properties to do it. I bought, I swapped, I built, and before the wine was gone, I won! It was weird, but true. I was a tycoon!

So now I know that the winning strategy is to overbuy, overextend, and overbuild. No wonder I never won before! I had been using good sense. Turns out, in Monopoly, greed is what works.

I’m glad real life isn’t like that.

Love,

Grandma Judy