Tomorrow's pilgrimage toward a reunion

They're all gone now--Sissie, ET, Mom, Ima, Addy, Gladys

Francis Faye Culp Clark

June 15, 1909-

July 5, 1980

It's more than two hours southwest and 35 years back in time for me tomorrow. I go to plant real flowers at her grave, and think, remember, talk, and touch mortality. 
Tell your mother you love her.
Brother Jerry and I have mementos and photographs, and more. We have questions and wondering we'll never find out. We have cousins.

Mom with grandchildren Travis, Dallas, Becky, Derrick and Vance

We and our children and our grandchildren carry her genes, her grace and goodness--and her sense of humor.
Mom, you'd delight in our your grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  
I know it's a long way from humble East Texas, but we've all traveled miles and years, and can never thank you enough for your unselfishness, how you cared for and reared us. 

Retirement at MD Anderson

We wish we were as good as you, but any goodness we have we inherited and learned from being around you.   
We look forward to a big reunion. In the meantime, I'll see you tomorrow.

Front row, right corner, on a Ma Bell basketball team

Dad's portrait of his bride, 1943

What to do about stale coffee on a blog's birthday?

Coffee with Clark was born as a blog on this day, May 3, 2009, with no idea about where it was going or if it would survive. 

The future blogger, Paris

After its seventh birthday, now beginning its eighth year, that is more true than ever. 
Judging from the declining number of posts this year and the past couple of months, it must be getting stale. At least the aging blogger is.
It's remarkable that it's stayed fresh as long as it has, because most blogs cease to exist after only a short time. But...
The blog has changed and aged, with the blogger. Is it time to just  throw out the dregs, rinse out the pot, and put it away?
I said last year at this time that I was wondering why I blog and the purpose of the blog. I'm no closer to answering that than then, but I know it's time for a change...it's time for fresh coffee or no coffee at all.

"It's time for fresh coffee or no coffee at all."

The aging blogger, Edinburgh

I planned to work on this during the summer, having sat in on webinars and more, trying to find  new directions, perhaps a new blog. My wife suggested this week that I should perhaps switch to a different blog.
Part of that is life stage, I know, some is laziness because I have plenty of ideas and stories to tell (for instance, I'm in the middle of reading about five books right now, all that need to be reviewed) but find myself just not wanting to sit down and spend the time it takes. This shows in the decreasing number of my posts, and the fact that I'm posting more paintings and less writing.
I have continued for several reasons, including teaching a blogging for journalists class at UCO. That pretty well demands that I be a blogger too. I don't believe you should teach something you can't do or haven't done.
And, I'm still a journalist--this is part of who I am. As one friend said, "You've got your newspaper column back." I don't want to give up the Coffee with Clark moniker because it's established, but there have to be some new directions. I'll probably try to keep it going through the summer, until I've met with consultants and others on taking my blogging to something that will be a pre-retirement and retirement effort that brings in some income and has a specific purpose.
So, on this birthday, here are the facts this year, and so far--the coffee is stale. Facts this year, and so far:

• 33--number of posts this year, counting this one
• 2--Month with fewest posts, June last year
• 4 and 4--number of posts last two months
• 144--number of countries where I've had readers
• 203,000+--number of page views since beginning
• 1,966 posts since beginning, almost all original
• 339--number of posts from May through December, 2009
• 76--number of posts in August, 2009 
• 11--number of posts in August, 2011

 And yes, I'm open to suggestions. In this insane political year, I'm desperate to have a voice that's heard, because it is so essential as Oklahoma education and everything else in the state goes down the toilet. But party politics don't belong in Coffee with Clark. So, I don't know. Will the blog survive another year?

Storm a'coming on the Great Plains

Daily watercolor, 5.5 by 8.5--Stormy evening on the Great Plains

It's one of those evenings on the Great Plains. A storm is coming. You can see it, sense it, smell it, on the wind, in the air, in the color of light, in the rapidly changing skies and clouds.

Revelations, perceptions, realities and New Mexico

Morning dreaming of the high road to Truchas, 5" by 6" journal watercolor on back porch

Quiet time revelations after a walk

 in Hafer Park this morning

"Since perception is reality, therefore all art is reality. There are no false views, wrong expressions, when artists put down what they perceive."  -Terry M. Clark

Think about it--yes, some are better at perceiving than others--Mozart, Michelangelo, Cezanne, Picasso, Whitman, Conrad, Twain, Parker, Ansel Adams, McPhee, Prince, Mish, Jake Harms, and millions more in all the arts. Perhaps a few times, Clark?

"Above all, I want to make you see,"--Joseph Conrad. "When I'm on stage, I don't think, I feel,"--Keith Richards.

As an uptight first born journalist I began painting by trying to get every detail photographically right. Some freedom eventually came with more practice, and especially watching my grandchildren paint, for who there are no rules. Looking at early work, or at work now when I'm in a dry spell, I see this morning, that every angle is different, every color is different, every shape is different, depending on how I look at things, and knowing you will see them differently. Why have I not had this insight before on my work--whether watercolor or writing? 

It helps to attend the Oklahoma City Festival of the Arts and be bombarded with a multitude of perceptions and realities.

Thus home from the walk to take out my leather bound watercolor journal--art and perceptions of reality in its own right--from Mind's Eye Journals--bought last year, but renewed with a visit at the art show with owner Teresa Merriman and her husband of Colorado. 

The high road to Taos, at Truchas, New Mexico, painted from memory, because that perception, that reality,  is so deep within.

Unsettled skies

"Unsettled Oklahoma skies"...today's watercolor, 9 by 12

It's one of those days, and months for that matter, and the skies today captured my mood without my even knowing it, until I made myself paint, and then write about it...the first blog post this month. 
Unsettled skies and more...
Plenty to write about, plenty of books and people, and yet like the skies in the opening pages of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, the rain won't come. Part of the drought is an almost aversion to the computer and keyboard, part a "rain shadow" from the peaks of activity in   the past months, and probably, part just because of the years and miles.
 But at least, there are the skies of the Great Plains, and the promise of rain.