Number One

So the decision has been made. Not a list, as I’d thought, but an un-list, so to speak. It’s my birthday soon, another opportunity to make a fresh start. To re-evaluate my last re-evaluation. And the decision was so simple, so clear, I’m embarrassed that it took a bestseller to lead me to make it. (A bestseller I read quickly, easily (part of the attraction) and half-concentratingly, and somewhat begrudgingly and judgmentally but there it sits – simply still what it is, what it was before I ever got a hold of it and, incidentally, I was drawn to read it because I watched what she had to say about muses and liked what she had to say about muses.)

So the answer.

Meditation. Quit asking the questions for a while. Shut my brain up for a while. At least twenty minutes a day, in whatever form that takes. Cross-legged and proper-like, on the floor of my tidied up living room or walking the alleys with the dog, taking a break now and then from quieting my mind to command the dog to “drop it” (then quieting my fear of what “it” might be.)Or even in the cube. Or in the car. Or in the moments between the other, more busy moments.

So it wasn’t a list at all. Unless the list was simply one number one. Silence. Because it sounds so dang delicious.

Catch and Release

I step up to write and I think Ground it in action. I still don’t know what this blog is and that stops me, so many times, from writing anything. And then when I do write it’s the thoughts, all the thoughts, the belly button staring and the hand wringing and I wonder Who wants to read all that?

And I’m not sure of the answer. Not even sure whether the question is relevant. Shouldn’t it be What do I want to say? Shouldn’t that be the question?

I’ve been thinking a lot about art, which I always do, and looking at people I admire, mostly online. They don’t ask, they do. They don’t ponder they move. But then again, there is a place in the world for ponderers. Contemplate. Ruminate. Meditate. Masticate.

What is making art? What is writing, sewing, painting, potting? Is it an expression or a gift? Is it for yourself or for someone else. I know, I know the answer…it’s both. But how can you entertain two intentions at the same time? How can you think I write this for myself and I give it to the world -- without being attached to how the world will treat it? With whether or not it has, you know, real meaning.

All I know is that I feel better when I do….when I complete and release. And the other thing I know is that I always fight the release. Which leads me to think Release. Which leads me to post these thoughts. Whatever they mean.

Big List

I'm thinking about a big list for August. Or maybe a small list. But a list. And I'll turn 41. It's one of those birthdays that occurs every seven years. Supposedly I have all new tissue. Well, whether or not that's true, lately i've been feeling like I have all new tissue. And that's good enough for me.

Besides, everybody knows that myth creates reality.

My hands are falling asleep...

Writing when I want to. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about writing when you don’t want to, saying something when you’re just not sure, yet, what you want to say. Not writing feels, sometimes, like sitting on my own hands. Like Addie stubbornly refusing to brush her teeth. Pure willfulness that results in unhappy scuttles. The strange inclination we humans have to do things that aren’t good for us.

I tell myself it’s an issue of time. That I just don’t have the hours in a day. That my day shrinks down from all sides. That in my free moments I am too tired to think. But it’s the thinking of “I’m tired” that makes me most tired of all. And I know that when I do, do, do something that matters to me, something creative, it’s the best kind of rest I can get.

You make bathtime so much fun!

Started my "Create Big Paintings" class last Friday. Learned enough to paint this bathtub last night! What fun!

Strawberry Picking and Chamomile Harvest

Yup. We live in Portland. Yup. We pick strawberries!

Off to the jiffy john!

Eating strawberries makes a little girl tired!

And we spent the evening plucking chamomile blossoms off of flowers we found in the alley behind our house...Tea for winter!

When you fall...

If I’d been any closer, I might’ve heard the sound of your body tumbling, tumbling, ass over teakettle, softness striking cold cement. But instead I was running, running, the six endless feet to catch you when you hit the bottom. The accidents always happen when everything is so good. And things had been so good, you were saying goodbye to your Gretchen, calling out “I love you and I want to take care of you.”

Your head hit the concrete with a muffled thud, not a whack, and I was grateful. Grateful for gravity’s mercy on this one, grateful for each cement step that broke your long fall. You didn’t fall down the steps so much as fall down a step, and then another one, and another one, minutes after your Dad warned you “If you keep doing that, you’re going to fall.” To which you answered, in all of your three year old chutzpah and oblivion, “I want to fall Daddy”.

Right now, as I write this, I’m reminded of another fall down the stairs, a different type of day. Not sunshiney fresh Portland evening but the claustrophobic feeling of the Maryland house at night, the avocado walls, the avocado carpet, the lonesome flicker of the TV. My mom very sick, losing her grasp on the railing, coming barreling down the stairs in a blur of heft and confusion. I was lying on the couch (In fact, I’d had the feeling-known, really-that I should help her up the stairs but I was angry at her, angry at her for having a couple of drinks, most likely angry at her for being in the act of dying, right in front of me, every day.)

But you, fresh you, I could scoop you up, hold your whole body against mine. Smell your sweat and skin as you criedhard, but not worrisome hard, into my shoulder. I’m grateful, right now, that I had the chance to comfort and cuddle, the chance to make this fall right.