One of the nice things about being old and out of school and not even having kids in school, is not having to care if I am liked or not. It has been years since I worried about if I was going to be rejected. I don’t know. I have a comfortable friend base and I’m fairly confident I can make friends easy enough.

That is until recently. When I was a kid we moved a lot. My dad’s career path involved a fair amount of transfers, so I found myself as the new kid at a new school in a completely new town enough times to recall that feeling easily. It didn’t help that I had a terrible sense of direction.

I spent a good chunk of my childhood lost. which is a little like how I feel on instagram. As a new kid, I didn’t ‘get’ things about the new school, sometimes, for weeks. Teachers cared about different things, Basic subjects were taught differently, desks were different, kids were different, lunch was different, recess was a nightmare. Even ‘cool’ was redefined in every new place. Always there was a core group who led the pack and just seemed to effortlessly confidently crack the like-ability code, or maybe they wrote it.

I haven’t lost my school girl admiration for whatever that quality or mastery is. One thing I remember is that making friends in our neighborhoods was way easier. School had so many rules or norms or things you had to understand. Kind of like hashtags and algorithms. No one in the neighborhoods seemed to care about what was trending, we just made up what we wanted to be into. If I stumbled into a school and managed to figure it out quickly enough, I made friends, if not, I just had to hang in there until the next move At least I had friends in the neighborhood .

I didn’t come away from any of this with good skills or even enough experience to help me out in adulthood, (or Facebook , clearly) It’s possible I have the tiniest bit of PTSD instead. I’m fine now, or at least I was, but my present baffling experiences with social media has me wondering.

Do I HAVE to do this? Is there no other way?

Once, I moved to a new school and was asigned a very strict teacher. On one of my first days, as I was scrambling to get an assignment right, my pencil lead broke. I needed to sharpen it to continue working. The teacher had left the room and when she came back, many hands went up. Apparently there was a rule about getting out of your seat when the teacher left the room (even to sharpen your pencil) and apparently these new kids enjoyed ratting me out. The new teacher showed no mercy, she gave me, shy new kid that I was, a punishment I had never heard of before. I had to copy dictionary pages. The kids seemed oddly glad. There I was thinking I was doing the right thing, only to find out I was not. I had trouble fitting in at that school, it wasn’t a good fit for me. It might be that social media and I are not a good fit either.

I didn’t get to choose if I wanted to quit school in the fifth grade. I wonder if it’s not optional to quit trying to do Instagram or Facebook if I want to get a book or an idea out into the world either…

Social media, man. It’s a whole thing. Kudos to everyone making and recording and posting content! It’s, well, wow, a LOT!

Here’s an embarrassing confession. I have, as of a few hours ago, finally figured out how to make and post a reel on Instagram. Everyone said it would be easy and actually it kind of is. At least the basic of the basics. I’ve always been the last one to catch on to things, so I know to be patient and keep trying, but it’s been years! I always wondered why when I tapped on Reel, my own squinting face popped up in a horror movie like surprising kind of a way. This was never the case with others it seemed, and truly it was part of my resistance with each time I decided to try. (You probably know it’s one small swish to change that).

When I first started with Insta, I was Facebook phobic, only because it seemed like no matter what I posted, a well meaning someone would give me very constructive, not so comfortable criticism. I get plenty of that outside friend circles in the art arena, plus I didnt love the embarrassment, or the added stress over family photos, so I pretty much left Facebook to the people who were good at it. The photogenic ones with really awesome relationships and award winning offspring. I had to just love my awkward life and Facebook didn’t help me personally with that at all.

So the day before we started out on my ‘book tour’ for Peaceful Hearts’, knowing I was supposed to have an ‘online presence’, I signed up with Instagram and went on to post. a lot, but only with the basic thing. A friend schooled me on hashtags, which I sort of understood, but not really. I never made it past 498 followers. Not once, and when people unfollowed me , I was like a third grader being unfriended on the playground, devastation with so many questions…

I learned things. I learned that a person such as myself, Canadian decent, can not quote Martin Luther King even on his holiday. I learned that only a very small handful of people care even slightly about me or my quest or even my inspired book(s). We can thank social media for taking over where my parents left off. I have remained humble and have not gotten big headed over any part of any of it.

Today, I made three reels! Yes. 3. I hope I can remember how I did it tomorrow. I think I may have linked Facebook and even my website. Likely not, but I am getting closer. If something happens and I somehow manage to acquire 500 followers, I can not promise anything about my swelling head, did I mention that I figured out how to make AND post a reel?! Yep, I did that.

That’s what the sign in the grocery store said and it IS 74 and sunny.

It’s amazing here. I’ve always loved the desert. Warm breezes and sunshine, magical starry nights. I love the close, wrap around mountains, I even love the minimalist landscaping. Mornings are pinkish orange and stunning. I’m sitting here on a patio, two feet from a golf course. How can it get better than this? I think I’ll finish reading my book. Later, I’ll draw, and paint and probably go for a walk.

It’s a different day from the one we spent at Disneyland. I love having had the experience of both, so close together even, I’ve enjoyed every moment.

Also the days spent with my son’s family, squeezing in tech help and dog walks between naptime and snacks. From San Louis Obisbo to San Diego to Anihiam to Palm Desert it’s been a busy fun leg of the trip.

Baseball practice, henna, tacos and princess dresses, chalk and water colors, Gelato and sunsets. Not to mention, my Amazon sample copy of ‘Peacefulful Hearts’ arriving and my meeting with my author friend. All the sweet moments with my fast growing grands. I even bounced into yoga one day and then walked with my friends and later my daughter-in-law at the beach. These are all my favorite things to do. I’ve spent time doing all these and more. Happy belated Heart Day everyone🩷🧡

I’m stopping at storage for some books.

I’ve done this so many different times. My friend asked me how many boxes I had left. Considering I had an entire pallet originally, my answer is not many. I’ll probably be a little sad when they are all gone.

I do love any and all opportunities to send them into the world and here I am with some new ones. When I showed my friends (who were there in the beginning) the sample copy from Amazon, they wondered why the ‘about page’ wasn’t included. I explained that it was only because I didn’t have a copy of it to upload when we were getting the sample set up.

The origin of ‘Peaceful Hearts’ is summed up on that one page. I later came to wonder if parents didn’t want to know that part. It’s a touchy subject. I’ve been in many conversations about emotions, and truly everyone has their own individual approach. I never intended to be controversial, and it was most unexpected when I was, The other part I sort of want to defend..

Shootings have only become more frequent since my experience. That is an unfortunate fact. Writing ‘Peaceful Hearts’ was me trying to move through my own PTSD. Art is good for that. Now that I’ve had so many people suggest that there is a healing message, I believe it’s true. I can still be soothed, and have been while just reformatting Peaceful Hearts recently for Amazon. No one seems to talk about what happens after a shooting, but I can tell you, it’s a whole separate subject.

My intention was to illustrate emotions a little abstractly, (because that is my style, and because emotions can feel that way, plus I’d learned how younger children like abstract). Then simply to suggest the idea of breathing through (as opposed to distracting or ignoring or whatever not acknowledging might look like). It was supposed to be for everyone, not just trauma survivors.

Well. Who could have predicted all the things that have happened in the world since then. I wrote Beatrix for kids during and after COVID. I guess my books are good for healing, I hope the universal message for everyone comes across, also, but I’m happy if one person finds either book regulating or helpful in any manner.

I always hold out for the days when we come together lovingly and kindly in healing supportiveness of each other, regardless of where we land emotionally.