Month: April 2025

Not a great look.

This phrase carries quiet power; like a stone placed just so on a sunlit windowsill or a single brushstroke on bare canvas. Georgia O’Keeffe lived by this principle, though she first learned it from Arthur Wesley Dow, her teacher who saw art not as imitation but as harmony – the delicate balance of line, space, and color.

Dow taught composition rather than copying. His lessons emphasized how emptiness could hold meaning equal to form. O’Keeffe felt this deeply, later phrasing it in her own words: “Fill a space in a beautiful way” – a philosophy that guided both her art and her life.

The Art of Space

Consider her paintings. Enlarged blossoms floating in void; weather-bleached bones against endless sky… each composition breathing through its deliberate emptiness. What she excluded mattered as much as what she included.

She applied this same discipline to her New Mexico homes. The spare interiors – adobe walls, wooden beams, a single ceramic bowl catching light – mirrored her artistic vision. Nothing extraneous, nothing wasted. Rooms were composed like canvases, with space treated as an essential element, not an absence to fill.

This concept extends beyond art and décor – it reaches into the very fabric of how we move through the world. Some fill space with noise, haste, or demands for attention; others, like O’Keeffe – who composed her paintings with deliberate forms and meaningful empty space – approached life with similar intentionality, creating impact not through excess, but through the still power of thoughtful, focused presence.

Learn more at The Georgia O’Keefe Museum.

The Woman Who Held the Room

Imagine entering a crowded gathering. Conversations mingle in competing fragments. An older woman enters – moving deliberately, not from frailty but from having nowhere urgent to be. When she sits, she settles completely, as if the chair had been waiting for her arrival.

She doesn’t raise her voice among the din. When spoken to, she turns her whole body toward the speaker, hands resting in her lap. Her simple, “Tell me more about that,” creates a pocket of calm. Without effort, she recalibrates the space. The noise softens. People begin leaning in rather than talking over one another.

Later, when asked about her secret, she smiles. “It’s not about saying the right thing,” she explains. “It’s about leaving room for the right thing to happen.”

This is the essence of filling space beautifully – not commanding attention but giving it, generously and unhurriedly, making the room feel lighter and more expansive through presence alone.

Composition of a Life

It is a profound truth that our lives, like art, are shaped both by what we include and what we exclude. O’Keeffe’s paintings demonstrate beauty through subtraction. The woman’s presence revealed grace in the spaces between words.

In our cluttered world of constant more – more noise, more stuff, more hurry – there’s a subtle revolution in doing less, but doing it with full attention. It manifests in how we design a garden, and equally in how we listen to a friend or enter a room – not to claim space, but to honor it.

To fill space beautifully isn’t about decoration. It’s about attention – knowing what to place and what to leave vacant. It’s restraint, clarity, and the courage to let emptiness speak.

O’Keeffe once described communicating through color and form when language failed. “I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.” The same applies to how we move through our days. The way we sit at a table, pause before responding, allow light to fall between us – these too are ways of filling space beautifully.

The Unseen Brushstrokes

In a world that values fullness – full schedules, full inboxes, full homes – there’s wisdom in O’Keeffe’s approach. Sometimes the most beautiful way to fill a space is to preserve its openness, to let it breathe.

What does the space around you say when you aren’t speaking?

Think of the difference between someone who bursts into a meeting, scattering papers and frenetic energy and one who enters with composed focus.

Or consider an exchange in which one person, while the other speaks, plans her next point, and compare it to someone who actively listens.

How might you fill one corner of your world more beautifully by attending to what already belongs there? By listening beyond what is said, to what wants to be expressed when the noise falls away?

This is how the desert speaks: through letting the wind carve its name in slow syllables. What we name emptiness is fullness in disguise – it is the shape around which all meaning gathers, the silence between the notes that calls the melody into song.

Also read, For Beauty’s Sake: A Lighthouse Keeper’s Tale.

Let’s Reflect:

What does the space around you say when you aren’t speaking? How would people describe you? Do you fill a room in a beautiful, calming way?

There’s no turning back now.

It’s hard to know what to do when good friend becomes seriously sick, especially if the prognosis is life-threatening.

Pushing past our own fears around mortality, sensing what is best in the moment, and knowing where the boundaries lie between supportive and intrusive requires empathy and honest communication. Possibly more than the friendship has ever required before.

Vulnerability, on both sides, can intrude, making it difficult to stand close while a friend faces the uncertainty, and sometimes the inevitability, of a diagnosis.

Denial, grief, physical pain, and loss of control can relegate one to taking life one step at a time and their future one moment at a time.

It’s disorienting and frightening and can conjure up defenses, making a person resistant to accepting assistance with daily routines – especially with things they used to take for granted – and even more so the new protocols and treatments.

It’s hard to be a good friend in such times. But it’s possible. It requires sensitivity, a tremendous amount of patience, and the courage to enter into a friend’s world.

I know, I’ve done it. I walked along this path with a friend from her diagnosis of stage 4 stomach cancer to the end of her life. I’m passing this along in hopes it will help you if, or more likely when, you are faced with the sudden life changing news of a good friend.

Here’s what I learned:

Give Them Time

Everyone reacts to grave news in their own way. It takes time and often – many attempts to come to grips with the ramifications of a serious illness. Your friend may expend lots of energy fighting the reality and attempting to change it.

That’s hard to watch, but it’s part of their process, and if you can suspend judgement, you can provide security and comfort through this difficult time.

The Truth of the Matter

It’s difficult to remember but the truth is, this is their journey and not yours. You may believe you know more and would handle the situation a better way, but you can’t know for sure until you’re there. So, be respectful and let them work it out for themselves.

Accept Your Limits

You can’t fix this. You can be supportive, kind, patient, and help your friend stay as comfortable, safe, and well as they can be in any given moment, but there is no promise that any of your efforts will do more.

Even so, being comfortable, safe, and well-cared for will make a world of difference to them, so what you’re offering matters.

Food Is Love

For some, food is comfort. Offer home-cooked meals and sit with them while they eat, providing good company and a sense of connection.

But be aware that their appetite might be affected by their condition or treatment. Encourage them to eat well but recognize that food may not always be appealing.

Just Be

Sometimes the best comfort is delivered in silence. Spend time with your friend just being. Sit in the sun of a warm afternoon and listen to the birds, or take a short walk with them.

Snuggle up under a blanket and watch their favorite movie together. It can be exhausting to constantly focus on their condition. Sometimes, they need to escape their own thoughts.

Be Helpful

Ask to run errands, do the dishes, set up a calendar to be sure they have someone to drive them to appointments. Help with the simplest of tasks can make a big impact on their daily lives.

Be Responsive

Do your best to sense their moods and their needs. Allow them the space to be in their own moment without trying to pull them out of their sadness. They need to feel what they feel.

Lend a shoulder to cry on, a strong hand to hold through the fear, and a supportive ear when they wish to share. But remember all these things come in their own time.

Take Care of Yourself

Being there for a friend who’s traveling along the road of sickness is taxing and fraught with its own set of emotions for you too. Be aware of your own health and be kind to yourself.

Take frequent time off from their routine and deeply immerse yourself in your own life. You cannot pour from an empty cup; remember to fill yours.

There is really no wrong way to be a good friend as long as your intentions are pure and your efforts come from your heart. Show up as the best version of yourself and your friend will be better for what you bring.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

How do you take care of a sick friend? What do you think is important to do in such circumstances? Please share your thoughts with our community.

When
someone asks me how I am, I say, “I have no complaints.”

No matter
where I am – grocery store, bank, real estate
closing table, church – my
statement of having no complaints usually gets a response.

Some
people just seem surprised that I don’t say the usual “fine.” Others chuckle. Some
question me, “Really? None?” It is not uncommon that someone says, “Yeah. Who
would listen if you did have complaints?”

My life
mission statement includes living on purpose, so to just mindlessly respond to
someone with a “fine” doesn’t seem intentional. I settled for “no complaints”
as a purposeful response to the frequent question.

“I have no complaints” also reminds me to not complain! It is as much a personal motivation as anything. Because I might be tempted to complain about a few things if I wasn’t intentionally not complaining.

For
instance:

The Weather

It is
often tempting to complain about the weather. Some days it is too hot for my
comfort. Others, too cold. It seems to rain often when our family has planned a
day at the river. It was never dry enough to do a controlled burn in our woods
this past spring.

But, the
weather changes day to day; sometimes hour to hour. We have a good home with
the ability to control the climate indoors.

The
seasons are glorious to behold, and seasonal changes of clothing is fun. There
are plenty of indoor, rainy day activities for our family. And for Pete’s sake – we have woods to stomp around in and enjoy, burned or not burned!

No need to
complain about the weather.

Other Drivers

Other
drivers can be pretty annoying – driving the
speed limit in the left lane, not using turn signals, not merging gently and
politely – and I do admit it takes some
self-control to not get so bothered.  

I am glad
that in my pre-elderly years I have become more patient and tolerant and less
in a hurry so I can control my temptation to complain about other drivers.

Waiting on Hold

Being put
on hold used to annoy me a lot, but even that became less of an irritant after
watching a colleague put her phone on speaker and keep working while waiting on
hold. I should have thought of that!

I do like
those businesses that will give you a call back. That’s thoughtful. If I need
to make a call that may require waiting on hold, I can time my call and plan
for ways to make it tolerable, with less cause to complain.

Little Aches and Pain

Of course,
the aging process carries along a few telltale signs. A complaining foot. An
achy hip. Sometimes sore muscles as a reminder that I tried a new exercise two
days ago.

For a
while, I had nagging back soreness until I figured out I should not be in a
weight lifting class with 30-somethings.

While some
aches and pains are unavoidable as I age, I am doing a few things to stave off
as much of the inevitable as possible.

I walk a
lot and take the stairs. Every time. I work out with a friend who is younger
and who is a retired Athletic Director. She keeps us focused on core strength
and balance. And, I love yoga, both in a class and at home with videos.

Complaining
about aches and pains just makes them worse and using them to motivate me to
keep moving is much more productive.

Professionals Who Don’t Act Professionally

While I was working as a Realtor, I occasionally had cause to complain about the unprofessional behavior of other Realtors or Mortgage Lenders or Attorneys. I could tell you stories!

BUT, I
won’t. Because complaining about others’ actions is not going to result in any
positive energy at all. My blood pressure is low without medication and there
is no need to get it high over stressing about something I can’t control.

Politicians
who seem to have forgotten they serve the people? No need to waste my breath complaining
about them.

Unjust
actions by people in positions of authority (police, teachers, pastors, etc.)
who take advantage of their title? No need to generate negative energy that
only hurts me and doesn’t change anyone.

A system
that is broken and under-funded? I can only wisely manage my own finances and
plan for a future that has uncertainties.

I can
vote. I can write letters. I can stand in the gap on occasion. I can volunteer.
I can contribute. I can listen. I can soothe. Those are much better ways to
expend energy than complaining.

Kids These Days

And what
about present day kids? Ha, ha! Nope. No complaints about this. Even though it
was a while ago, I remember being young and finding my way. I wore skirts too
short and swimsuits too skimpy. I pierced my ears when “nice girls” didn’t
(according to my mother).

I smoked
cigarettes and drank alcohol before I was legal. I even smoked pot a few times
(and inhaled) when it was a felony to possess even a seed. It only made me
paranoid, so that didn’t become a problem, but I did experiment. If I was
younger now, I would definitely get a tattoo.

While I am
concerned with education and employment opportunities for young people, I am
not worried about the generations younger than mine.

While there
are temptations to err and risks to health and just plain stupid mistakes that
will be made by some, there are plenty of smart and enterprising and capable
people younger than me who will solve as many problems as they create.

The 13-year-old son of a client went to Washington D.C. to receive an award for a “future technology” competition. He was delighted to meet Bill Nye, the Science Guy.

My own daughter works in a Nurse-Family Partnership program, developing relationships with at-risk moms with a view of changing generational and societal habits.

She
fearlessly goes in the homes of her clients and loves them through pregnancy
and the first two years of learning to be a mother. The research of how these
relational programs can change lives is inspiring.

I trust
the future is in capable hands.

The Cost of Food, Gasoline or Anything Else

I was tempted to complain about a rise in gasoline tax in our state. But then my husband reminded me of how much we enjoy travel and good roads.

Of course,
I remember waiting in line for 10-cent-a-gallon gasoline during a “gas war” in
the 70s, but I also remember when minimum wage went from $1/hour to $1.15.

My father
died in 1979. He had worked for the same company since returning from WWII. He
was a skilled and talented sign painter. He had no retirement (the stress of
which most likely contributed to his early death – along
with a diet of saturated fats, sugars, and some not-so-great genes).

He was
making a bit more than $6.00 an hour when he died. 40 years later, he would not
believe the wealth and security that is available to many in the United States.
Still, we lacked little, even on his limited salary.

The truth
is that I can afford anything I need and a lot of what I simply want but could
live without. Thankfully, neither my husband nor I require medications that
might tempt us to complain about the cost. But, also, with Medicare, at least
for now, even medications would be affordable in most cases.

There is
really not much to complain about in reality. Complaining is just another habit
that could drain me and make me unhappy.

It might
be easy to fall into complaining if I’m not reminding myself often of how truly
blessed I am. By adopting my signature “I have no complaints” response to even
casual greetings of “How are you?” I remind myself to be grateful for all the
good parts of my life – of which
there are plenty.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

How do you engage with people around you? What do you do to keep focused on the positive? Can you resist the temptation to complain? What’s your response to the usual “How are you?” Please share with our readers!