Welcome to my page! I’m Clover. Like so many women, I wear several hats: I’m a slightly wild but still bona fide, card-carryin’ believer in Jesus Christ, a wife, mother, grandmother, writer of songs, poetry, creative non-fiction, children’s stories, etc…, an artist (of dreamscapes and portraits), inn keeper, coffee house proprietor and baker,  musician, home-maker, teacher, hostess, bee-keeper, soap-maker and  artisan. I’ve lived with my family for the past 40 years on the tiny volcanic island, Montserrat, in the Leeward Islands of the Caribbean. I’ve found this lush, fruitful environment to be compellingly conducive to creativity of all kinds. If you come here, you will too!

Ideally, my day begins with a focus on Love and the God who is Love. I remember and highlight my role as His child: in quiet prayer, reflection, study, and writing until life around me comes rushing in… from the telephone, the knock on the door, guest arrivals, (we own and run a small Guest House, Gingerbread Hill) the morning stirrings of our youngest child, Noah ,who’s now an adult. Noah has that magical extra 21st chromosome that presents as Down Syndrome…or more accurately, Trisomy 21.

 I then shift gears into some of the other roles: wife, mother, housekeeper, gardener and general all ’round, plain old everyday lady. In this gear I prepare fruit salad with home-made yoghurt, make sure Noah feeds and waters “The Girls” and collects their lovely, fresh, brown eggs for a balanced breakfast, do some learning stuff with him, answer reservations requests, check on guests, make new lists and lists of lists, clean the house, do the laundry, tend the garden, cook the food, etc…If time avails, I’ll sneak in an online art class or have time to work on a painting or portrait.

I once heard the term, “ruined for the ordinary.” I think that’s what knowing Christ in an intimate and personal way does to us. Ordinary will simply no longer do! There’s really cool, meaningful stuff lurking within everything that comes our way, if we open our eyes to see it. Knowing this puts me on the prowl to find, within my casual and often mundane everyday life, living  lessons of an eternal poignancy and beauty…at least to me. My discoveries are often expressed through some art form or other, via the union of words with music, or words with meter and sometimes some humour, or with colours that lusciously play and sing together. (Love those colours!) Sometimes I can’t even get anywhere close to adequately expressing what I have in mind, and so I have to let them steep awhile. Sometimes they seem to be there just for steeping purposes!

I’m what I call a “create or bust” person. There are times when I feel that if I don’t quickly create SOMEthing, I’ll just explode! (And I tend to get cranky when I go too long without some form of creative expression. My family can verify this!) I am not an organized girl, as desperately as I’ve tried and tried to become one. (Honest, I have.) My brilliant British writer-friend, Polly Patullo, once humbly described herself as a “creative slob.” (Note: she is not a slob at all.) And though I cringe to sentence myself to that, I should probably say that if it’s good enough for her, it’s good enough for me! In truth, am much closer to the “s word” part of that term than she is. But here’s the thing: God told me once, “If you’re going to be disorganized, then at least enjoy it!” Amen. Why do we guilt ourselves so? I dunno. But we do, don’t we? I still do. Goofy.

But I thank God for a mostly meticulous husband. Over the course of 45 married years, David and I have balanced each other out a bit. (Ya think?) He’s relaxed his symmetrical parameters of order a bit and I’ve reigned myself in/shaped up…somewhat. There are still areas of creative chaos that I do hope to learn to subdue. I know…a place for everything and everything in its place. Discipline! But I don’t always DO what I know…you know? (When our 38 year old son, Sun Brother, was 8 or 9 years old he made this acute observation: “People say what they say but they mean what they do!”)… Alrighty then. If that is so, then I guess I mean to not take everything so seriously and just enjoy our blessings…whether messy or neat.

Sun and his beautiful wife, Kristina created for me this blogging website  as a Christmas gift for Christmas, 2011. Believe it or not, however, it is STILL being sort of a new thing for me. Time is always a challenge, and I still don’t really know how this blog thing works. Not sure how it will unfold. No idea what I’m doing, but I guess the big idea is to include writings, links, art, music and more. If you’ve found your way here to this page, then “PLENTY HOWDY! (Island talk for “HELLO and WELCOME! I’m so happy to see you!”) I hope that over the course of time you’ll find at least a little something to encourage you on your daily journey. We can share chuckles, tears and adventures together…if I can figure out how!

Love and Blessings,

Clover