Wow… I just read the most disturbing talking point article. It was about cars and the car industry.

Posing the lead – in question,” Has America passed peak driving?” Why has driving and car ownership declined so drastically for 16 – 34 year olds? The article contends that cars no longer have the magic aura of freedom and power, and that they are unnecessary in urban areas as well as too expensive. They apparently associate driving with “brain numbing ” commutes across smoggy, congested highways. Brian Merchant, in Vice.com says this is not a temporary economic downturn, but rather a social revolution. He says drivers 55 and over, rooted in the  American car culture hungered to get away from their families, towns and neighborhoods. It meant getting to go where you wanted, when you wanted and meeting whom-so-ever you wanted. ( To which I said, damn straight!!)

BUT… and it’s a BIG BUT

He goes on to say, “…now you can do all that on the Internet, and for FREE! Hang out with your friends, play games, share music and photos! A new generation has found a faster and more convenient way to…

                                                                     (get ready, here it comes)

…move their brains around.”

I’m still reeling from this ridiculous conclusion and observation. Seriously?! They are ‘moving their brains around’? Oh my… I weep for the future. There is nothing that replaces first hand experience. Especially when it comes to travel. The Internet, Facebook, and other social media, while they are fun and immediate, are nothing more than the illusion of moving your brain around. If we were to believe this conclusion, why ever bother getting up to do anything other than bodily functions. ( and don’t even tell me you take your phone in there…eewwww )

This was such a sad and stupid article. I pray young people have not become so lazy, uninspired and out of touch with adventure and travel that the world will extend only as far as the text at the tips of their fingers.

I refuse to accept this viewpoint of a ‘social revolution’ to come. And if it is coming, I hope to influence as many young people as I can to see beyond this limited, brain numbing, illusion of what life has to offer them.

I like to say that art is all about noticing things, making connections. I haunt antique malls for this purpose. It’s sort of creepy to some people, the idea of going through other people’s things. Voyeuristic I suppose, creeping around the edges of others’ lives by virtue of the things they left behind. Still, I am unapologetic about my habit, and find it an irresistable pastime.

It’s the same attraction I have to clotheslines. Clotheslines connect me to the past while grounding me to the present. When I hang clothes, sheets, towels on a clothesline, I’m my mom, my grandmother, and countless women who came before me doing this mundane chore. I’m a child again, and a grown up too. I’m a pioneer woman and a modern day version of same. I never, ever cease to enjoy the activity. I can experience how the sun connects us all, and  the basic things we all have in common, just from the simple act of hanging wet clothes on a clothesline.

And that’s not even the best part, as you all know. The best part is burying your face in that dry, sweet, sunshine infused laundry. There is an old Zen saying:  

After ecstasy, the laundry.

I think about this saying whenever I’m taking warm laundry off the line, and have to laugh to myself … because I’ve got it reversed—After the laundry comes my ecstasy.

( photo detail of LONG LIVE THE SUN, canvas collage by Catherine Massaro)

I wished for love – I have been loved.

I wished for money – it came and went.

I wished for a car – it was freedom!

I wished for long hair – then cut it all off.

I wished for a job – I got a paycheck.

I wished for a warm winter – I still do.

I wished for excitement – and found it.

I wished for a divorce – and got it.

I wished for peace of mind – daily.

I wished for wonder – and it surrounds me.

I wished for escape – and learned how to leave.

I wished for a studio – dreams come true.

I wished for New Mexico – days of heaven.

I wished for connections – where is my tribe?

I wished for friends – they give me joy.

I wished for a road trip – to never end.

I wished for my youth – and I got a grandchild.

I wished for a good nights sleep – and to die peacefully in it. 

I wished for art school – where I found myself.

I wished for a pony – but never got it.

I wished for my period – most of the time it came.

I wished for a girl – and got a boy, with no regrets.

( see ART tab for  WHAT I WISHED FOR  canvas collage)

A most beautiful excerpt from my favorite new book, “When Women Were Birds” by Terry Tempest Williams.

“Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.”

( canvas collage by CATHERINE MASSARO, “Bird on the Wire”)

Usually around June, like a migrating bird, I start leaning towards Taos, New Mexico.

I must have been around 27 years old when I first learned of Taos. At the time I was hosting a weekly life drawing group out of my home/studio in Kansas City. Gosh it was a great group of women, one of which went on at great length one week about her recent trip to Taos, where she attended a week long watercolor group. My dear friend Maureen and I were mesmerized by her stories and made a vow to go that following year. Not only did we go that year, but for 15 subsequent years thereafter, we made it our annual painting trip. I recall only one year where we had a break – that was a post miserable divorce for me when I was stone cold broke, and during her husband’s kidney transplant. It was always the highlight of my year and I think hers as well. Eventually we abandoned the workshops altogether and simply went on our own.

If you have never had a great painting buddy as an artist, I can’t really explain the kinship. Nor can I relate the connection or bond you develop with a place. And that’s what it was like for  us and Taos.

So, here it is June, and here I go again. Sadly not to meet up with Maureen to paint, but happily to be with another dear friend and old neighbor, Victoria. Almost 10 years ago when I lived in Taos, Victoria lived across the road in her sweet domed house. Life on the Arroyo Hondo mesa, on the outskirts of Taos proper, was rugged and windblown but magnificently beautiful. Easily the most beautiful place I have ever lived. As always with these beautiful places I have been privileged to live in though – winter came. Cold, wind and the dreaded snow.

But New Mexico got in and stayed in my blood.

” …become intoxicated by this irresistible high-altitude landscape they now share with previous generations of settlers. As Georgia O’Keefe once wrote:”

“If you ever go to New Mexico, it will itch you for the rest of your life.” 

When you’re in your 50’s, your measuring stick for happiness finds a different mark than the one you had in your 20’s, 30’s or 40’s.  Happiness seems to come from old friends and new starts. I have recently reconnected with some  dear old friends, maintained great relationships with one’s I’ve had for years, and even lost my oldest childhood friend – and not from an untimely death. But it was a fine friendship for over 40 years and what I have to take away from it is how we were each other’s best memory keeper. It was a traumatic break for me, but I found solace in a recent editorial by Jo Packham , in her marvelous publication, Where Women Create.

“It is written that if you can name one person who is a true and trusted friend, who has endured , and is victorious through the tests of time, then you are blessed indeed… Often friendships just cannot last forever; along life’s journey, a bend in the road can separate the two of you before you realize that one of you has been left behind”.

Anyway, my life is not lacking for friendships – thank God.  I will continue to build memories with those dear enough to share good times and bad with me,  accepting  both who I am, as well as who I may become. After all, if we do not change, we are not growing. And if we are not growing, we are not really living.

I am happy to be a memory keeper along for the journey, but will keep a wary eye out for  those bends in the road.

(featured image – photograph by Catherine Massaro)