In Love

       I am in love with Saturdays.  They are the perfect days.   I find the early morning hours to be most precious so I get up early.  The pace of the day is what transforms the morning.  I retrieve the dogs from their night space and they hang with me in the living room while I do some writing and usually check a few things on the computer.  A Saturday morning walk comes next and these solitary rambles are the best.  My weekday exercise vacillates between neighborhood walks and workouts on the elliptical cross-trainer.  The chatter in my head on weekdays often revolves around work but Saturday chatter?  It tends to be more in the moment, more eyes wide open to the view around me.  I walk for at least an hour, often more like ninety minutes.  We have a fair amount of hills (baby hills, really) in town and I get a kick out of walking some of the more isolated areas in the light of the weekend morning.  Taking a page from Lynda's blog, here is a bit of what the morning light showed me today:

     After the walk, I allow myself generally to drift through the day.  I usually save the laundry and household chores for Sunday since Sunday is already sullied by its proximity to Monday. For example, when I got back from the walk this morning, I sent an email to a friend and then had my oatmeal, blueberries, and almonds - LOVE that breakfast.  I looked at the paper and read a bit from this week's Newsweek which was still sitting on the kitchen counter untouched from it's arrival earlier in the week. I then played with the paints for a bit.  See what I am working on?

This is one from a few weeks ago:

Would you maybe like to see my work space?  

Mixed in with my afternoon nap, I will find time to read.  These are on my list for today:

And , of course, my fingers will find these two tools at some point later today as well:

Do you understand why I in love with Saturday?

It's the pace of the day.  It's the solitude and the silence.  It's the ability to breathe and so take in the world.  No demands.  Amen.

For Mama

  My mother recently moved for the winter to an apartment in town. It's a lovely one bedroom in a quiet area and all things are perfect.  Except that the walls are bare.  Now, I am not sure my mother really minds the bare walls.  She fills her days with jigsaw puzzles, computer work, reading, crossword puzzles and all sorts of communication and mentally engaging activities.  But that was the first thing I noticed when I went to help her unpack. The walls were empty.

The next time I went up to see her, I brought her one of my paintings.  It was bright, colorful and abstract.  Very abstract.

     My mother is wonderful.  She wants to support her kids in whatever their pursuits are.  She has listened to more fledgling musicians, has read more original poetry and/or other written pieces, has ooh-ed and aw-ed more homemade gifts and sewing project than you can shake a stick at.  So, when I brought her my abstract brightness, she tried.  She really did. But I am no dummy. I could see by her questioning face that she wasn't really sure WHAT this was I had painted.  And knowing WHAT it was seemed important.  So, I very quickly said something along the lines of, "Oh, wait, I have a better idea.  How about I bring several up and you can choose the one that YOU like.  I brought this one because I like it a lot and it is bright and sunny but I can bring several and you can choose."  Her smile and laugh while nodding her head confirmed that this was probably the right idea.

    Okay, so here's the problem.  My paintings don't come out of realism.  I didn't have any that I could take up to her.  I decided that I would have to do my best and create something she could read.  My mother has always had a flower garden. I decided that I would give flowers a go.  I loved playing with backgrounds and the colors and trying some different combinations.  What you see below are the four finalists.  Remember, the photos cannot show the real painting.  You cannot see the fine points nor the texture.  The lighting is not the best either.  Paintings are always so much more alive in person.

    When I told her I would bring some paintings back, Mama said, "Oh, don't paint just for me.  That wouldn't be right.  Paint what YOU want to paint.  It's not the same if you paint something that you are trying to paint for me.  You have to paint what you want to paint."  I got what she was saying but I think I proved her wrong.  I painted something that she might like yet I still had fun.  They are not my favorite of all time paintings, for sure, but they were fun to paint.  It was sweet to paint with Mama in mind and to still play with colors and textures.  I would have gone more abstracty but I wanted her to like them too.   Do you think she will?



Oh, and just for fun, I am including this one because , oh I don't know, I like it?

Anything But Dangerous

   I've started a farewell to 2011 post a couple of times now and it's not working for me.  I don't really like to look backwards but I can see the value of examining the life already lived.  2011 saw my life break into shards but, the thing is, I was the only one who saw the breakdown.  I let a tiny fistful of people see pieces of that collapse and I tried to paint it but I am the only one who really knows what happened.  I prefer it that way.

    I do believe I literally broke and I do believe that the pieces are still all around me on the floor.  I have reached a point where I am not afraid of them anymore.  They will not cut me.  They will not kill me.  I have even started to pick them up occasionally and will run my fingers over them to feel the smooth yet sharp texture.  When the disintegration first occurred, the shards were shiny red but since that time, they have become more mellow, a deeper, ancient sort of red.  There are some of the shiny ones still flashing in the winter sunlight but mostly the pieces are less flamboyant, less garish.  At first, I couldn't imagine that the pieces could ever be anything but dangerous.  Time has a way of changing one's perceptions, however,  and now I think that if I allow myself to become acquainted with those splinters and slivers perhaps I can put them to some kind of use in 2012.  I am creative but I am also hugely defined by my personal culture and history.  I fear I have some more breaking to do but perhaps this will be more breaking out than breaking apart.  I am curious to see what happens to those shards in the upcoming year. One thing for sure, though:   I am not afraid of them.