Snow Daze and Other Things

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A quick reminder. Practically Twisted is going away. If you want to keep up with my art journey, please follow me at www.mimmpattersonart.com.

I’m a creature of habit. I rise at 6 AM. On five of seven mornings I’m out the door by 7:30 (ish) and, depending on traffic, I am in my studio at McGuffey Art Center, by 8 AM. It’s my routine. My practice. And with my solo exhibit, Holding What Time Leaves Behind, opening in the blink of an eye, now is not the time to mess with my routine.

Enter Mother Nature. 

Maybe she had an ax to grind because, let’s face it, we’re not taking such great care of her masterpiece. And if you’re old enough to remember the Chiffon margarine commercial with the tag line, ‘It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature’ then you’re old enough to know that’s it’s really not nice to mess with her, either.

To be honest, our little patch of Virginia lucked out during last weekend’s Snowpocalypse. Ten inches of snow and sleet accumulation is not unmanageable. It only leans towards unmanageable when the temperature stays below freezing. Which, of course, it has done.

The good news is that if one was paying enough attention there was time to prepare. I was and so I did. On Saturday morning I brought home crates of supplies that took over my office and formulated a rough game plan in my mind.

And so I’ve been working from home since Saturday afternoon, turning my office into a makeshift studio and our living room into the space from where I teach my online yoga classes. It didn’t drive me crazy until yesterday. But right now, in this moment – 7:09 AM on Wednesday, January 28th, 2026 – I’m humbled and embarrassed. 

It only took two hundred and fifty-three words and a bowl of matcha to put a winter storm in perspective.

Because I stayed home on Saturday.

I stayed home on Saturday while others stood in temperatures far colder than Crozet. I stayed home while others blew whistles and held their phones high to record thugs roaming the streets of Minneapolis. We all know what happened next. It wasn’t enough for a good woman to be murdered by our government. On Saturday they murdered a good man, too. They jumped on him like a pack of dogs and then shot him ten times.

But I stayed home. What could I do? What can I do? Isn’t it enough that I wrap myself in a blanket of sanctimony while reading Heather Cox Richardson and watching Timothy Snyder on my Instagram feed? Isn’t it enough that I’m on my local chapter of Indivisible’s mailing list? That I repost important essays on Facebook?

No. It’s not enough.

Today is Thursday, January 29th. I’m headed back to the studio, even though the ice and snow near the entrances to McGuffey has forced us to close to the public for another day. I can’t not be there. I need to work.

This snowfall, still on the ground, heavy and frozen rock solid, is like the overwhelm so many of us are experiencing. It feels heavy. It keeps us frozen and prevents us from moving. From doing. But the snow will melt. 

And this feeling of being overwhelmed? It can melt, too. And I can be more than a passive observer. A simple question: what do I care about most today? Is it immigration? Voting rights? Reproductive rights? If I choose one concern and take one action. Calling my representatives. Sending a postcard. Attending a rally.

I’m starting small. Today, I’m wearing a paper clip. This is why:

https://joycevance.substack.com/p/paper-clip-protest

And for the rest of the day I’m going to reflect on my skillset and the contributions artists have made to effect positive change in the past.

One step at a time. Always forward.

https://grayarea.org/press/protest-art-means-age-trump/

https://www.falloffreedom.com/events

Age is Not a Number

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Today is my birthday. I’m sixty-seven years old. And I’m here to tell you that age is not a number.

Age – aging – happens and by believing that age is simply a number bypasses the truth that as the years roll on we change. For example, the hair on my legs is now growing out of my chin and the hair on my head is thinning. My first step in the morning is more like a first limp (yoga hip). My skin is wrinkling, my eyes have gone dry, and over the past year I’ve developed the same hammer toe my mother was blessed with.

So age is not ‘just a number’. I know people mean well. I know the phrase is meant to comfort. But the words also imply that I should ignore reality. The words imply that if I repeat them like a mantra my body at sixty-seven will perform like it did when I was twenty-seven.

I’d rather embrace all the circles I’ve made around the sun. I’d rather embrace all the changes. The not so great changes but the good changes, too. I’m sixty-seven years old today. I have greying hair and I’ve put on weight but I’ve also let go of the envy that consumed me forty years ago. I’ve become more appreciative of the small moments in life. I laugh more. I go to bed early so that I’m awake to see dawn. I want to remember to accept it all.

Acceptance isn’t curling up in a ball waiting for the end. Acceptance puts me on a path of exploration. What can I do now that I couldn’t do forty years ago? What attitudes have shifted? Moving forward, what steps will I put in place to ensure good mental and physical health? What will I do to commit to living a creative life of purpose – a life that has heart and meaning? 

This week I will reflect on these questions – I understand the answers will change over the years as I continue to grow and change. But where am I right now, in this moment? And how can I use the insights I gain by reflecting on these questions? How will these insights impact my art practice? My yoga practice?

Moving Day

Note: I’ll be shutting down my WordPress site in a few months. If you signed up to receive my little posts – thank you! If you would like to keep up with my art, my online yoga classes or just the ups and downs of life, please visit my new Squarespace website.

Some people thrive under pressure and chaos. But I’m one of those people who prefer order. I like routine. I perform best when there’s a place for everything and everything is in its place. This isn’t limited to the objects I choose to keep around me. I need a place for my thoughts and feelings, my reactions to the world around me. I need a place for unfinished conversations, my hopes and my fears.

The home we loved. Until we didn’t.

Order is a little tricky to find right now. My beloved and I moved house over the weekend. We’ve downsized and our new home – a late 1990’s duplex on the other side of town – is lovely but it is also much smaller than the townhome we left. And it lacks a garage which is, of course, the space in every house that collects the detritus of life. That being said, our new home is much larger than the five hundred square foot condo we shared in California with our dearly departed cat Bruce (naturally Bruce took over most of the real estate). We lived there for almost a decade – even through the pandemic – so if we managed that small space I’m certain that with a bit of determination and perhaps more than a little compromise we’ll manage this space, too.

Besides, trading square footage on a high trafficked main street for a quiet cul-de-sac and a back garden was an easy choice. Right now that back garden is more a dense carpet of weeds and broken branches but you ought to see what it looks like in my mind’s eye.

But it hasn’t been an easy move. Is any move easy? This one – just two miles down the road – has been one of the most difficult I’ve experienced. My beloved agrees. It doesn’t make us less grateful. We’re just aware that the last few months haven’t been easy.

I’m reluctant to blame age and more inclined to blame circumstances that are too boring to get into. Let’s just say, for the time being, chaos and clutter reign supreme.  No matter. We both know that it won’t always be like this. At some point order will be restored.

I hope.

I hope because I have a solo exhibit in four months and then another just five months later and of course I’m excited and grateful but after a week away from the studio the deep unease of slow rising panic was beginning to overwhelm me. 

But today, after seven long days, I got back to the work. And in doing the work I found a place for my thoughts and feelings, my reactions to the world around me. I found a place for my hopes and fears.

My beloved and I will be living with a few more weeks worth of chaos and clutter in our new home but for now, for me, a little bit of order has been restored.