Not Paris

Sitting at a traffic light tonight after work on my way to the post office, 84 degrees, the smell of exhaust: oddly nostalgic of my first summer in Europe, 1977, backpacking with two friends. Who would guess that nasty exhaust would drum up such a memory? But there I was, late afternoon, just off a train in some city (Paris/Florence/Barcelona), in search of a cheap hotel, a place to unload the backpack, get a decent night's sleep, if lucky. I could feel the hunger rumbling up in my belly, anticipation for dinner — what would it be tonight? Would I understand the language of the menu? Would there be an odd translation? ("Mixt, with Starters".) I pulled out my dog-eared copy of Let's Go Europe and headed for the closest one-star restaurant for my $2 dinner.

All these recollections, and the traffic light hadn't even changed yet!

A long line at the post office, and there I was again: American Express office, Paris, checking for mail. Back in the day, in the previous century, friends and relatives at home could address mail to me at any American Express location. All I had to do was flash my Amer. Ex. traveler's checks  — proof that I was a customer — and I'd pick up a stack of letters.

Heaven! I received funny antics-reportings of my cat Alex from my little sister ("Alex pooped on your bed the day after you left"), tales of my mom's daily activities ("went to an Altar Society Meeting yesterday and I was elected secretary; I don't want to be secretary") and missives from various older sisters. I still have those letters, archived in a box in my basement.

The one I recall most vividly, though, was from a semi-boyfriend: a man who was twenty years too old for me, twice married, once divorced (and unfortunately, still married), who explained to me why he wasn't going forward with our "relationship".

I remember sitting on the stone steps of the Amexco office, sizzling in sun, feeling my stomach lurch down to my feet.  The world got really silent for a moment — all the street noise, the traffic and constant rush of people — silent. It wasn't a surprise, but damn, I was in Paris. I was twenty. The world should've been more glamorous, but here was proof that it wasn't.

I can still see his handwriting — precise, cursively taut, in fine green ink. (He knew I loved green ink, damn him.)

And then, in a flash,  I was back in line at the post office in Seattle, listening to a clerk speak way too loudly to a customer, as if volume could make up for a language barrier. It wasn't Paris. There was no bundle of letters for me behind the counter, no sad-sack last story from Mr. What's-His Name (who, according to my mathematical calculations, is nearing decrepitude).

Back in my car, windows rolled down, I imagined for just a moment that I was leaning out a train window, baguette and a round of camembert in my backpack, bottle of cheap Côtes du Rhone ready to be uncorked. Life was ready to roll, man or no man, and I intended to roll with it.

For a moment, I imagined I'd have to find a hotel, find a place to eat, possibly do a currency exchange. I was hungry, and tired, but I was confident I could manage every detail of it. Those things were, after all, only details.

By then (back to reality in Seattle), I was pulling into my driveway. Not Paris. Leftovers in the fridge. A bottle of two-buck-Chuck already uncorked, and chilled. And thought: here is my life, 37 years later.

Two years forward, I would return to spend the entire summer in Paris, work permit in hand, going broke while becoming culturally wealthy. I thought then that my entire life would be different after this trip, but the truth of it was, when I got back to Seattle (okay: Renton), I rented a room from my mom, and started graduate school in Creative Writing at the U.W., feeling stuck, not wanting to be where I was.

It took me another 25 years to understand that those first two trips abroad informed every decision I would make from then on out. My job in the art universe today stems from those summers where my days were suffused with lush visual imagery and the sense of infinite possibilities. Growing up in the shadow of the aerospace industry, my logical career path pointed to Boeing. But I ran in the other direction, and haven't regretted it for a moment. (Except when it comes to dental insurance, ha).

And here I'd intended only a quick stop at the post office, and ended up, instead, immersed in the scents, sounds and tastes of summers abroad three decades ago. (Maybe I should go to the post office more often.)

Anyway.

I'm about ready for that glass of wine. Anyone have any camembert?

Not Paris, most likely London. 1977.

Aviary

Was so close to a baby robin tonight (she was perched in my hazelnut tree, dozing), that I could see her heartbeat: with every breath, her tail feathers moved up and down. I was immediately brought back to my early years of nest-climbing, those impossibly blue eggs and a mother robin frantic nearby as close as possible as I peered in, counted the eggs. Lucky, later, if a broken shell-shard littered the ground at the base of the trunk. What was so beautiful had been cast off to make room for the new.

My hummingbird was as curious as I was — she fluttered around and around the dozing baby (who opened her eyes halfway, then returned to napping).

Last week a long trail of tiny amber ants took over the nectar feeder, gorging themselves into a drowning stupor. It took several tries and I finally had success (for now), by moving the feeder to a hook suspended from a rope strung to support the rampant kiwi vine. Farther for the ants to travel, but time will of course tell. At first I had it nestled in amongst some of the large roundish kiwi leaves, and was sternly reprimanded by my resident birds. Too hidden, I'm guessing. So I moved it to a more open space on the rope, and they immediately took up to feeding once again.

Such drama in my little back yard!

Drilling, Crowns, and A Suggestion for the Overhaul of the Insurance Industy

Somehow, it seems wrong to continue on about this tooth business, but after a conversation today at work, I just couldn't resist, insurance hoo-ha and all.

First off, I  wasn't going to let anyone go away without viewing this gem (REQUIRED VIEWING):


One of my new work-mates found this for me, and I watched it today while screaming. SCREAMING! I felt almost every one of those teeny drills boring into my jawbone, because the lidocaine shot into my gums wasn't sufficient. The dentist had to shoot it directly into the root, and work it in as he exposed the root bit by bit. Had enough yet? I have.

The really bad news, though, came later, when he was finished. He told me I need four crowns. Well, of course I do!  I want one to be diamond-studded, another emerald, the third sapphire, and the fourth in rubies and pearls. Let's get on with this immediately!!

But four. And not an exaggeration.(Cracked/worn/unstable/chipped.)

Four!

Four.

Feels like if I type that number enough times, it'll become real. Not quite ready to sell my house to finance my mouth but I'm veering mighty close to it.

And now, for the insurance/lack-of-insurance rant.....

I'm proposing that the insurance companies divide the human body into segments, and price their policies according to which parts you choose to insure.

For example:
The Torso Policy would cover everything from neck down to groin.
The Limb Policy would cover arms and legs.
The Head Policy would cover brain, skull, face, ears, eyes, nose and mouth (including teeth).

For those unwilling or unable to parse the body in such a manner, there could be the Grand Corps Policy, covering everything form the top of the skull to the soles of the feet.

Or there could even be a more itemized list of options, such as The Hangnail Policy, or The Hair Policy (which would cover bad haircuts). The Earlobe Policy. The Eyelash Policy. The Elbow Policy (handy for tennis players).

For ages 13-17, there could be The Acne Policy.

For men there could be the Erectile Dysfunction Policy (I mean, why should I pay for their ED Rx's.?).

The possibilities are infinite!

Honestly, I'm surprised that the insurance universe hasn't descended to this insidious level of trivial itemization.

I'm happy to know that you can purchase a policy which will cover what your primary insurer won't cover, ie, deductibles et al, euphemistically called "Supplemental Insurance". I'd like it renamed to "Bleed Your Wallet Insurance".

Is this madness?
Yes?

An Early Bake

Up early to bake a cake before work
for a friend's birthday, in cool morning air.
Outside, the Sunday Times crossword
where I left it last night, the paper rippled
with dew, perpetually unfinished.

Later: chocolate ganache
and 90 degrees. Few words.
Summer crackles forward.

Summer, Summer

It was a slow-maneuvering day, yesterday, at 91 degrees. We are a temperate people here on the far northwest tip of the USA, more at ease with damp and drip than crackle and flame. And lord have mercy it simmered down sometime in the night, the air a sweet cool ribbon that wended its way in my window-in-the-trees, carrying the scent of the lake like an offering to all of us with heat-prickled skin and moss crackling, drying up behind our ears.

No desire to be indoors; the flung-open blue of the sky calls me out at all hours, no matter the time, equally inviting at noon or 3AM. If only there was no need for sleep.

No Matter the Mindfulness —

No matter how many slow walks in the woods, in the company of many
thousands of ferns. No matter the single owl I saw last Sunday,
who swiveled his head away from my gaze. No matter how
many evenings I spend on my balcony gazing at clouds.
No matter the hummingbirds with their scritchy-
almost-no-song. No matter the red rose, well
past petals, and no more buds. No matter
waking at dawn with the sun on my
pillow. No matter the dawn birds
in song at once. No matter the
dinners in the garden.
No matter the
watermelon.
No matter
the hour.


Today opened to another month,
and damn if I can't get time to ease up, just a bit.

On every leaf, a pink star —

or multiples of pink stars —

Hire them all, almost.

Interviews today, three out of four were damn fine candidates, all willing and wanting to work for not a lot of money because it's not working for The Man. I sat and listened to artists speak about what is important in the world, how experience and joy trumps the dollar. Granted, experience and joy generally don't pay enough to pay the mortgage, but sometimes they do, and we find out that we're getting by just fine.

I don't know how M. will say no to any of those three. Such earnest souls, people who get why we do what we do, here at the Glass Factory. Just about makes me weep, the honesty of each of them, the insight.

And then there was the fourth one, who arrived thirty minutes early, was loud and overbearing with one of those old-girl smoker's coughs, her voice gravelled down somewhere deep inside her lungs. Appeared to be older than me but, I'm guessing, was probably not. A helluva lot of really hard living hung about her like a sooty cloud. Her jag-toothed, leering smile. Oy.

And the man with the massive hands, who I know couldn't manipulate his hands down inside most of our vases that get painted both on the outside and the inside. He was nervous, talked a lot, had a lingering sweetness. I looked at his online painting portfolio, and there was some fabulous stuff. Again, why is he applying for this job?

I don't know which one said this, but it was spot-on:

"When I work a traditional job, like retail, it zaps all my creative energy. I come home and don't want to do any of my artwork."


Yep.

For us artist/writers, that creative energy is essential to being alive.

Sunset Therapy

I stood in the street tonight in front of my house for a long time, turning in circles to take all of this magnificent sky in. (All I've done to this photo, taken with my iPhone, is ratchet down the saturation.) I couldn't get enough of it, wouldn't if it went on for the rest of my life. What is it about color, anyway? I can feel it deep inside my brain, like the best drugs possible. And no Big Pharma involved!

On the eastern horizon, it looked like someone had taken dustings of mahogany and fushcia chalk and sifted them down into the puff of clouds. Tonight was color-feasting of the highest order.

All well needed, as we're in the midst of major fluctuations at work, two people on the way out and one new person in training. Another new hiree has already been let go. It's pretty easy to tell, early on, if it's a good fit, and this one was definitely not. Pretty painful, as she really, desperately wanted the job. On to more interviews tomorrow.

A few things have surfaced, while reading cover letters from prospective employees: they're all "'passionate about art" and are excited about "bringing their skill set to our team." And so many applicants are tremendously overqualified, it breaks my heart. This is an entry level position, not anything even remotely glamorous. It's hard physical work, with a fair amount of tedium, yet today within a few hours of posting the ad, there were at least forty responses. Most of them have BFA's (Bachelor of Fine Arts) and not a few have MFA's, and impressive resume's.

It's all rather exhausting. And while all this is going on, the production schedule continues to demand my attentions. Shipped out to Boothbay Harbor, Maine today, a gorgeous collection in mostly tones of blue, grey, turquoise and yellow ochre, colors most unlike the performance of tonight's western sky.

Hornet House

Hornets in the eaves, hidden behind boards, coming and going through 1/4 inch spaces. I'm loathe to exterminate them (exfoliate, electrocute, exorcise) — they are good pollinators and, who am I that is so important? An ethical dilemma.

Maybe all I need is an AK47, blast the hell outta them.

But seriously.

Since I'm a bit sting-shy, and don't relish the thought of great hordes of them rushing my face, I'm hiring a friend to brave himself up on a ladder and point a can of lethality at them.

But until that happens, in a few days, I anticipate a nightmare or two where they drill through the sheetrock and swarm into my bedroom, hissing clouds of unrelenting pain. Wasps, hornets: they sting multiple times, and with little consequence to themselves.

My brain tonight is overfull with buzzing, even as the hornets ease into dusk.

The lives a house contains, the many thousands incubating as I type.

Gardening the Unremarkable, on the Solstice

I've humbled myself down to a garden of unremarkable plants, yet they are plants no less loved than anything more exotic. When talking gardening out and about in the world, the conversation always gets back to that which is less than ordinary, and my aim when I'm elbow-deep in the muck is to nurture what wants to be there, not that which I'm tricking into growing.

There's white anemone, and a few kinds of mint. There's borage and a shasta daisy or two. (Or three.) Cosmos. Cornflowers. Some penstemon, whose latin variety-name I know not. Alstromeria. Lemon gem marigolds. Lamium. Hosta. Nasturtiums. Geraniums.

Oregano, chives, sage, parsley, thyme, basil. Rosemary. Fennel. Tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, green beans, onions, carrots, chard.

No exclamation points, no misty-edged photos. On this morning of the longest day in the northern hemisphere, I yanked out weedy invaders, filled my watering can and lugged it from bed to bed, ever-aware of conservation, only watering what needed to be watered.

There are no photos to show here, nothing about which to exclaim. I worked my ordinary garden with a quiet mediation in the abundant early light of the first day of summer. And I could not have been more contented.

In Clouds

I laid on my balcony tonight and watched clouds, something I haven't done in I-don't-know-how-long. Rain rolling in, a quick clipped wind, the undersides of leaves flashing white.

How easy it was, though, while lying there, to feel part of the larger world, an inhabitant of a larger planet with atmospheric shifts occurring right there above me. So good to visually step out of the small world of day-to-day, that downward focus that snares us in and keeps us from expanding our vision outward.

How long has it been since you laid down on the earth and spent time looking up?

(I had a notion that clouds would be fascinating seen through binoculars, but I was mistaken. )

There's a nail, a bolt, a screw, a giant something stuck in one of my car tires. I could hear it all the way home Monday night from my open mic, ten miles of click click click and of course I feared the worst, it was close to midnight and the road along the lake was unlit and I was alone.

I calmed my alarms down, no flat tire, rolled uneventfully home.

Do you hate dealing with car stuff as much as I do?

Especially glad for the walk to work this morning. Car worship is something I've never been able to understand. It's simply a tool, a vehicle, if you will, for getting from point A to point B.

I'll drive it the two miles to the repair shop tomorrow, do my best to communicate the issue with the proprietor whose first language isn't English. And if I say that I want life to be easier, I'll remind myself that this is easier, all things considered.

The Silence of Fathers

When I think of my father I think of apple trees, his apple trees, all four of them, and how his work with them seemed a kind of meditation, all these years since. So many years. I'd bring my dolls out and sit with him as he pruned, or thinned. Or I'd climb up in the trees: not far to fall. Not much talk — a quiet man.

I can recall few conversations with him: he taught me how to tell time, a complicated lesson which involved the sun and the rotation of the earth. I was six, and didn't understand much. But I remember sitting beside him on the couch while he went off on what seemed to me far-reaching tangents, all too advanced for my first-grade understanding. There was an awe, and a fear of him, a serious man.

He tried to teach me to row a boat while camping in the San Juan Islands, and I failed, utterly. We fished together; again, a quiet study.

I wonder what our adult conversations would've sounded like — I like to believe that we'd have sparred on issues of philosophy, politics, the need for art. Which side would he choose? He could debate anyone under the table. (I have one of the medals he won as a champion on the debate team in college.)

My fear is that we'd have been polar opposites in our philosphies, that he'd disapprove of poetry. But then, what do I know, really?

I do know, though, unquestionably, that we would have talked gardening, and apples. I know he'd have the remedy for my six-apple tree.

Every year on Father's Day, I lie under the radar of families celebrating.
I work in my garden.
I keep quiet.

The Moon, and Treasure

A back-and-forth email with a friend has evolved into its own odd thread, an excerpt below:

The vacuum, well, it lingered alone
in the basement stairwell, back where the foundation sagged,
all those hundreds (thousands?) of pounds of brute house force
yanking it downward. Gravity was the problem,
as it ever was.
Frown lines.
An old quilt whose stitching wanted nothing more
than to lie down and say goodnight.
And wasn't sleep the goal, after all?
Maybe.
The buttermilk moon, the lemon moon, or whatever the heck it was called
remained nested comfortably behind a swaddling of clouds.
Nearly summer, and a cold wind pushed its way in
through a window left open for the cats.
Not a night for music.
Even those velvet-cream sheets lay limp as kelp.
It had been a brain-scramble of a week,
and, well, sleep was indeed the goal.

Maybe tomorrow, she thought,
in the light of midday. Maybe we'll amp up that music
and get on with the harmonizing.

______________________________________________________________

And then a dream, in which I find treasure — yes, treasure! — a pile of large boxes on my kitchen floor: strange and ancient coins, piles of silver and gold charms (including about three dozen Eiffel Tower charms), old first-edition books (autographed) in mint condition, pristine vintage clothing. There were two pairs of women's silk shoes, one emerald green, the other fuschia, and I had to snatch them up quickly because there was some urgent need to get away and hide them, something pressing on my consciousness: I'd overslept, it was 10:37am, and was going to be late to help my sister move.
I want back in to that dream.

The metaphor doesn't escape me: I exist amongst treasure, this being alive is what it is.

Unseated, Pink

DIY Dentistry, Day Two

Of course, the "dental adhesive" didn't last, and I'm left with a hunk of 28-year-old molar-shaped gold and a jagged gap in the back of my skull. I was telling my co-workers about this little adventure today and E. said this:

"My hygienist is the funniest hygienist ever. She used to do forensic dentistry, and she can tell what part of the country you come from by your fillings."

(Long pause.)

"Of course, that was a while ago, when I had dental insurance for a hot minute. It's been a while since I've been to the dentist."

I had one of those hot minutes myself, ten years ago, and the luxury of dentistry was mine for a short time. Not so much now. Last time I was in, the doc said he could only glue this crown back on one more time. Not enough tooth left, nothing to anchor. (Which might account for my repair failure.) An implant is a fantasy at this point, so I'm looking at extraction. Ain't that swell.

But enough of that. Our two divine employees at the Glass Factory are both leaving at the end of June, off to greater adventures. I've been in mourning over this, not only that we're losing two wonderful workers but we're losing two marvelous, radiant individuals who have graced us with their presences this past year. It's been a gift to sit beside each of them and listen as their life stories have unfolded during the long hours at the big table. I'm a better person for it, and my own imagination has expanded in ways I never thought possible. I am reminded, again, at how much there is to learn from the people in our lives.

M. posted a Craig's List ad for replacements, and had over 60 responses. Phew! Most applicants were crazily over-qualified, including someone whose resumé listed "Creative Director for Polo Ralph Lauren, New York." Why in hell does this person want to work with us?

But it looks as if we may have struck gold — again— if that's possible, with the two new hirees. I spent all yesterday and today training, or rather, teaching from the ground up, and it's going well. Fingers crossed. The learning curve is steep.

DIY Dentistry

Just today at work, while wielding an x-acto knife and picking away at a "cavity" on a piece of glass, I mentioned to one of the new employees that if she needed any dental work done, I'm her girl. I even have a drill! (Well, dremel, but it's got a diamond tip and I'm exceptionally precise. Maybe I missed my calling?)

Unfortunately, or maybe, fortunately, tonight I'm my own girl. My crown popped off, and minus dental insurance and/or a cache of spare bucks for a dentist, I googled "how to reglue a crown", and I was in business. Went to Walgreens for some dental cement, and after a few attempts (including, at one point, losing the crown and finding it in the garbage can), it seems fairly solidly in place. We'll see. But $3.60 is significantly less than $120. And the difference between the two will buy a helluva a lot of groceries.

But not to perseverate.
 
Earlier, I was sitting on my back deck with a glass of wine and the NYTimes Sunday Review, which I dole out to myself day by day, article by article. A state of utter contentment. My hummingbird buzzed up to my ear, hovered there until I acknowledged its presence. What was there to possibly complain about? Not a thing.

And now I sit, crown repositioned and feeling not unlike some kind of dental queen.

The bottom line: when you have to do it yourself, you find a way.

Not a Bushel, Not a Bagful

Only six apples on my tree this year.
(One is enough, of course, for temptation.)
And god knows who to blame.
(But what does god know?
And what is god?)
But if, in fact, god knows who to blame,
then let him show his face.
(God? Or him?)
(And clearly him, I say.)

The truth, I know, is clear,
and six is not enough.

Detritus

A treasure discovered beneath the rhododendron, nested in a bed of spent purple blossoms —

The shell that remains from a squash I grew last summer, so like a broken egg.

The curled tendrils of last summer.

Shell within a shell: snail within a squash.

Shell exterior.

The backside with its lovely concentric water marks, like sedimentary layers on a cutaway hillside.

The Dawn Chorus

When I lie awake in the twilit pre-dawn hour and listen to the chorus of birds — the large heavy branches of an old Douglas fir are just outside my second-story bedroom window — not only do I curse my wakefulness but also wonder at the concert being performed for, well, it seems to be for only me. (One of the few conceits I stubbornly maintain.)

Wonder, to be more exact, at the how of their volume from such creatures of insubstantial heft. If I could roar at a volume proportionate to my, ahem, heft at the same ratio of birdsong to bird, well, I'd be in violation of a city law.

After a brief investigation, I learned that birdsong originates from the syrinx, a sound producing organ, which is situated at the junction of two bronchi leading from the lungs. When air from the bronchi passes over the syrinx, vibrations occur, producing what we recognize as song. But even better, each bronchus may produce a separate tone, which is then "mixed" as it passes over the syrinx, resulting in the many-toned and elaborate "songs" which entertain my early waking.

It is theorized that birds produce this prodigious amount of song at dawn because that is the best time for sound to travel, there being little wind or other noise disturbances. Another theory is that male birds may just be boasting their virility despite their typically low energy reserves after a night of no feeding. (Men!)

Science aside, I remain in rapt awe of the complex structure of these songs, both rhythmically and tonally, an olio of sound that includes robins, house finches, sparrows, wrens, bushtits, jays and nuthatches. 

Here's a short recording of a house finch singing. After listening to perhaps a dozen of these on YouTube, I chose this one for the commentary in the background — a snippet of birdsong but also a snippet from a stranger's life —

Trimming roses for a vase, I scissor through my finger.

Stolen, ripped from a bush crowding the sidewalk,
everything about them is danger: thorns & theft.
No surprise then that I pay in blood,
the tidy skin-slit prettily spilling its serum.

And did I expect to slip them secretly
from a stranger's garden, minus shout
and accusation? —my smug self
with the sprig tucked into a sack,

atonement measured in layers of gauze
and a finger looped in tape.

(But oh, the crimson petals
dripping from the vase!)

At the Glass Factory

The irises are nearing the end of their bloom, and for several weeks now we've had an array of them in tiny vases on the work table, every color a different scent: grape kool-aid, root beer, cotton candy. And now that the roses are coming on, the table is scattered with pinks and golds, a blush of pale orange, and again the parade of scents: apple and lemon, mango, clovey-spice. Every one smells like something else — it's a game of imposters, and from day to day I don't know if I work in a candy factory or an orchard.

Match the paint on my palette to the color of the flower-of-the-day, and it's a full-on sensory affair, with an aria playing in the background.

The only thing missing is ice cream — heaping bowls-full, in every conceivable flavor.

(I'll have to bring up this fact of our Ice Cream Deficiency at our next staff meeting.)

Ruined Beauties

Rosamond Purcell

I hesitate to say that I've long been a lover of ruins for the suggestive nuances contained therein, but it's true. The wrecked and the abandoned ignite parts of my imagination like nothing else, so it's not a surprise that this passion has led me to the work of Rosamond Purcell, a Boston photographer/author/artist, who spent twenty years digging through the eleven acre site of a Maine junkdealer, unearthing all manner of objects in varying stages of decay, all chronicled in her memoir Owl's Head.

By chance, I happened upon this book. A friend some years ago introduced me to her work when he showed me a book of her artwork, and something — I don't know what — brought her to mind recently, so I reserved three titles by her at the library, and Owl's Head is one of them. I'm not even halfway through it, but already it has yanked me into that junkyard of wonders where mice nests are discovered in the remains of books and disintegrating bowling pins are raked from beneath a pile of scrap metal. And so on.

Stuff.

I've long been obsessed with the nature of stuff, questioning its meaning, and/or the absence of meaning when we have transmuted our own selves/cells to ash. This was never more profound than when, ten years ago, I began to sift through the many accumulated belongings of my late husband. Every little thing, every objet that he'd treasured, was subject to my judgment: keep? Toss? Give to charity? Every decision weighed heavily on me. I wondered: would I see his shirts at Goodwill, marked 99 cents? His shoes?

Of course, some things ended up in the garbage. I filled, for each of my boys, a large bin of "mementos", and these bins are still in my basement. I gleaned through the many books, kept the signed first editions, gave the rest away. The one thing that I treasured, his wallet, was stolen in a burglary.

So what, then? I've come to peace with the truth that his wallet still exists, somewhere on this planet, even if it's been turned to carbon. The dust of it remains, in the least. For that matter, the dust of everyone/everything we've known, touched and loved exists (curious: if you remove the "s" from "exist" you end up with "exit": everyone/everything we've known, touched and loved exits.) Is there ever any true parting, though, if you view life from this much larger perspective? It grants me comfort, this notion.

But more on the subject of disintegration, in Rosamond Purcell's words, from Owl's Head:

"I exhume the frame of a typewriter, its vestigial hammers like the ribbings of an ancient echinoid.  Where does the sea end? At what point does a manufactured object turn into an organism. Do objects drown? Do they ever possess a life — beyond batteries — that might be taken away? Is an object transmuted into another substance, ever, like a fossil turned from flesh and bone to stone?  When does an inanimate object become worthy of a scientific name? I name the typewriter Underwoodensis corrupta, a close invertebrate cousin to an echinoid. Its appeal is purely visual, of course, but as this typewriter aspires to the same lofty class of objects as the book-nest, it too comes from the place where metaphors are made."

Words to commit to memory, and to ponder.

If you are a regular to my blog, you're familiar with my disintegrating James Fenimore Cooper, which has recently celebrated its second anniversary outdoors. (You may read about it here and also here.) No mouse nesting between the chapters, yet. But there's no rush. These things take time.

Gone Missing

The waffle iron.
Various men.
A metal rake.

And then, this week a sock reappeared, mysteriously, on my dining room table, blue striped. All casual, as if only gone out on a lark and had just then sashayed back in. I didn't know that missing socks ever did actually return, but there it was. In the cotton.

Recent Archaeological Discoveries

 A striking example of an early chair, c. 1973, mostly likely a remnant of the Curlyculios peoples, who vanished sometime in the late 20th century. Notice the absence of upholstery! There is some speculation among Curlyculios scholars that this might have served as a toileting aid.

With its enigmatic green splotches and rough-hewn surfaces, this flat stone engraving (c.1999) is a marvleous example of ancient Pacific Northwest moss-texts.

Bucketus Rustifolious, c. 1981, recently discovered at a morning-glory excavation site. This is an example of artifact commonly found entombed beneath massive accumulations of morning-glory (aka bindweed).

One of the rarer 2014 finds is this Podiafowlia Bootius, in remarkably good condition despite the considerable pitting and mold spores. Although little is known about Podiafowlia Bootius, the considerable heft of the "body" suggests that it is probably 80-90% concrete.

Iris-Smitten

They are so much like feathers — purple feathers — the tightly furled iris petals that line the walks on my route to work. It seems to take me forever to get where I'm going on account of the necessity of stopping to inhale the sugarsweet scents. Some are delicately sweet, like faded candy, while others are so deeply, so sweetly rich they seem almost to drip iris-honey at my feet. And to correct: not all purple, but varying degrees of purple, and rusts and golds, and sometimes white, with upright yellow stamens.

The blossom in the photos has slipped, slimy, into the shot glass — diminished! — and now the water which sustained its unfurling has taken on the purple coloring.

I am in love with the world, right here, right now.

Pin Cusion, Iris

Finch and Moon

My cat left a dead goldfinch — a fledgling — on the patio, and I picked it up and held it in my palm. So little weight, so much of nothing in that feather-bundle! Its eyes were closed, the miniature talons curled in on themselves.

A few detached breast feathers caught in a breeze and lofted across the concrete: a tumble of tiny fluff-waves.

Very delicately, I unfolded one wing, and then another, to observe what is most often unobservable except at a great distance and in motion. Just as carefully, I pressed each wing back to the body, amazed at the tidiness, the efficiency of it all, how each wing wanted to close back up, the wings like a pair of soft hands cupping the body. My curiosity a kind of violation, but reverent, yes. 

And pondered: what to do with this almost-life, this newly dead, this palm-full of exquisite beauty and feather-symmetry? There's the whole song-bird guilt thing, the millions of them killed each year by domestic felines. The should-I-keep-my-cats-indoors question.

But what is the natural state of a cat, even a domesticated one? Is it to live its life in a man-made structure, to never feel the earth under its paws, never prowl lion-like through the tall grasses? Is the cat any less of nature than the bird? Am I any less a part of nature?

Who gets to decide?

The ideal diet for a cat is that of small birds and mice, bones, beaks and all.

So guess what I did: I set the bird down for the cat to finish. And she did. Dragged it under the deck. I could hear bones snapping, like the sound of a handful of twigs being crushed.

Later, when I peered into the dark beneath the deck boards, there was nothing to see, not even the beak remained: zero evidence.

And now the moon has risen, where an hour ago I searched for it and found nothing.

Where to file, in my consciousness, this fact of one small dead bird, as I type in light reflected off a celestial body 238,900 miles away?

Stitched.

iris: Furled, Untethered

Sit.

This Peace, It's Enough

My cat is outside leaping from roof to roof, ruckling up trouble with the nesting birds. A crow just swooped beak-down at her, and a starling is in the neighbor's cherry tree sounding a harsh alarm. The cat — Lucy — well, she's in her version of heaven, all bright-eyed and invigorated with feline youth. Now, if I was to leap from roof to roof, it'd be a different story....

I came home from work today and immediately went out to plant my tomatoes, which involved spading a garden bed and pulling out handfuls of insidious bindweed roots. It's not quite warm consistently yet, but after several days of dramatic intermittent hail and rain, the skies cleared long enough to play in the dirt without getting soaked.

Lots of worms.

I moved my fire pit two feet north.

(I garden by the square inch.)

It's been a good ten years since I worked earnestly and with passionate intent in this yard, and an entire adult lifetime since I experienced the level of peace that I enjoyed this evening, dirt under my fingernails and twigs caught in my hair.

As a child, I groomed the woods behind my house, kept the paths free of nettles, named the trees. I knew where tiger lilies bloomed in June (a secret glade, accessible by no path), knew where salal grew waist-high and rustled-up a chorus when I ran through it. I knew which trees were best for robins' nests. Knew how a fiddlehead fern unfurled from the leafy underbrush. Knew how the sun dappled my face when I lay beneath the ferns.

I didn't want to come in tonight, so I compromised and left the back door open, and dug out some old sheet music, and played Chopin while the spiraling dusk-song of robins accompanied my modest key-work.

It was good to be home.

It was good to be alone.

No hot water, but plenty of garlic.

Can I say I HATE scrambling around on my knees in the basement peering into the base of the hot water heater to try to light the pilot? For most of my childhood I argued with my mother's mantra: this is a job for a man. But today, I couldn't agree more. Sexist? Certainly.  But whatever. Get me a man to fix my hot water heater and I'll whip up a chocolate cake with raspberry filling and ganache icing, toute de suite.

Grumbling.

Tomorrow morning I'll take a bath with water heated in kettles on the stove. And then go to war with the (apparently, according to my plumber-nephew) thermo-coupler. How I'm going to get my hands and a screwdriver into the tiny floor-level space where all the business is situated is beyond me at the moment, but in the absence of cash, I'll make it work.

No blowing up the house, though.

(Okay, truth: I have a call in to my son N., who tends to handiness. )

But to get to the garlic: I was at the produce stand today, and had left my basket unattended for a moment, safely wedged against a wooden crate (there are precarious slopes at the produce stand) and went to check out some  deals on salad greens. When I turned back, a woman was making a quick exit with my fairly-filled shopping cart. I ran after her, claimed my cart (she was surprised that it wasn't hers!) and finished my shopping.

At the checkout, as I unpacked my items onto the counter, I realized I'd forgotten to get garlic. I debated whether or not to run and grab some, but there was a line behind me, and things move pretty fast there, so I decided I'd make do with my few remaining cloves at home. And then — voilà! — there was a small bag of garlic in my cart, compliments of the earlier cart-thief! I decided to keep it, such lovely serendipity it was. The thief, incidentally, ended up right behind me in line, so I told her the story, and she said, "that means I don't have any garlic in my basket?"

"Ha ha, yes!"
She burst out laughing

So: plenty of garlic, which has absolutely no impact on my lack of hot water. (I'm really trying to tie these two themes together, and failing, utterly.)

Sweet Soft Song

Asleep, early morning and cool after yesterday's blaze of summer-tease, I could hear a woman humming close by, very subdued and without much tone, but soothing, and pleasing. I began to rustle awake, to wonder about the source. I live with only my son and two cats, and, well, not one of them has a voice quite like what I was hearing.

Not at all alarmed,  I rolled to face the window, and opened my eyes to the curtain fluttering in a steady breeze. And there was the source of such a soft and not-quite plaintive song: it was only the wind, wending its constant low whistling in through the slight gap I'd left open for air last night.

A change in the weather, and my not-quite disappointment that my reverse lullaby was only slightly less than human.

Time to get up.

It stayed with me all day, that almost-melody, my soft comfort, my pillowed memory.

Wind From the Sea, by Andrew Wyeth

Balmy (Not Barmy)

It's been a rare sizzling spring day here today, 84 degrees still and the sun just set. A feeling like somehow I've missed something, that I'm ten years old and summer slipped by in just a few hours and I didn't notice. Like I was supposed to have some required amount of fun, and I failed. And so to make up for it I'll stay up late, windows and doors flung open to the evening's sonorous buzz.

The Facility

Yesterday at The Glass Factory we listened to screaming goats and laughter loops, one laugh spilling into the next, superimposed by our own explosive, falling-down, tears-rolling laughter. I like to think that we're a funny (as in ha-ha) bunch but then, maybe I need to get out more often.

Ha ha.

Lest you think it's all fun and games, well, it mostly is.

A sales rep from one of our suppliers called today, and he'll be in town next week from California, and wanted to know if he could stop by to view our "facility". HAHAHA. He said that we used so much of his company's masking material, it would be nice to see exactly what it is we do with it.

M. politely told him that the "facility" is a house and garage-studio, and that he'd be most welcome to come by, but to expect the unexpected.

I think that without the constant, ever-rolling humor, most of life would be fairly unbearable. We work damn hard, long days which spill into weeks. I could probably trade this job up for a management position somewhere corporate, for better pay and benefits, but I think that would kill me. (I spent 15 years working for a corporation, and it did indeed nearly do me in.)

It's all a gamble, really, isn't it? And trade-offs. I'll most likely work 'til I drop dead. Retirement isn't a word in my vocabulary, at this stage of my game. (The cruel facts of economics in an expensive town.)

I do hem and haw, now and again.

But here I am, and intend to stay. Painting out my life, one color at a time.

Excessive, Spectacular Pink

My front yard is like an over-lit neon sign at the moment, shamelessly and incessantly shouting out "pollinate me! Pollinate me!"

Honestly. I want to move in to the pink dogwood tree. I want to live there, among those flat-petaled blossoms. I want to feel them on my face, my arms, all over and at all times of the day and night.  And when the wind picks up, like it did today, a fierce April wind with a razor-chill to it, I want to hang on like everything hinges on the hanging-on, because in a way, everything really does hinge on this.

I'm hanging on.
It's pink, and I'm hanging on.

Chicken Dinner and a Beach Ball

Easter Penance: Costco

A day of sharp rain squalls, this Easter Saturday, and I was out in it on my weekly urban grocery foraging. Ha.

I mostly try to avoid Costco, but go there for prescriptions because the price doesn't bleed my wallet out. I didn't need much other than the Rx's, so I didn't get a shopping cart, which was a mistake. I realized, as I dodged and swayed quickly left or right to avoid getting side-swiped by rolling metal tank-like carts that they serve not only the purpose of holding one's mega-whatever packs but they are also a kind of personal armor. I'm telling you, it was dangerous, and I kept having to do funny little dance steps and do-si-do's just to avoid injury. I could swear that there's a low constant humming in that warehouse, the sound of commerce grinding it's way inexorably into the next sale. And why is there no express checkout?! Five items or less? All I had in my arms was a giant bottle of Tabasco and a giant bottle of vanilla, and for the privilege of paying a reasonably low price for them I had to stand vigil behind flat-bed carts tipping with 48-packs of toilet paper (each roll individually-wrapped: what waste!), cases of Progresso soup, and floppy giant bags of white flabby dinner rolls.

My mother used to do an Easter Saturday vigil at St. Anthony's church every year, alternating shifts with her fellow Altar Society members, until midnight. Me? Today I meditated in line at the Costco Cathedral of Our Lady of Capitalism, contemplated the apparent need all around me for excess upon excess (the sales clerk didn't even take the time to make eye contact).

A kind of penance, I suppose, for which there is no need for confession. The only thing missing was the organ.

Insurance Rant

My insurance broker who handles my homeowners insurance emailed me last week, saying that there is a new company they're dealing with who offers significantly lower rates, and if I wanted a quote I could get one after sending photos of both the front and back of my house.

So today I heard back from the broker, who said, "Your house is so cute! REALLY CUTE!!" And that I could get a quote if I scraped and painted all the "exposed wood" on the house (it's stained), if I scraped and painted the garage to match the house (it's a falling-down garage that isn't worth even a quart of paint), and if I cut back all the "shrubbery" to allow easy access to the house (the "shrubbery" is a clematis, a rhododendron and a climbing rose that have been painstakingly trained to frame my front steps and front porch and in no way prohibit access to anything.)

Bottom line: shell out $3k+ and we'll cut your homeowner's policy by $20 a month. 

Gee. What a deal.

What a scam. I wouldn't put it past them to supply me with a list of "suggested contractors" who'll do the job at bargain prices.

Looks like I'm staying with my current company.

Excuse me while I meditate —

It's a gritty place. There's glass everywhere, paint tubes, containers of brushes, stacks of cut-up paper towels. Water cups. Linseed oil. Rubbing alcohol. Parchment. Sticky blue photo-resist. Packing peanuts, bubble wrap, shipping boxes, sharpies, tape dispensers. On the kitchen floor is a box with half a dozen hand-blown (and very $$$) blank vessels. Razor knives. A cat. Everything in a different stage, all of it somehow ending in a gallery in Martha's Vineyard, or Beverly Hills. Or Brooklyn.

Etc.

This week chaos has reigned, a discovery of flaws in way too many pieces. One of my jobs is to troubleshoot, to make a defective piece into a first-quality piece. There's some masquerade that happens, some sleight of hand: make the defect look intentional, embellish it with some irridescent paint, a garnish of maroon. (Works like a charm.) Sometimes I feel like a dentist with my diamond-tipped drills and sharp pokey tools as I gouge-out embedded stones the size of pinheads.  There's UV sensitive glue and a diamond wheel grinder: my bag of tricks.

Today the credit card processing device repeatedly refused to function. Credit cards were declined, gallery owners didn't answer their phones.

 Expired/refused/cancelled.

(A bit like me, at the end of the day.)

I keep about ten orders in my head at any given time, all in various degrees of completion, with infinite variations of pattern, color, shape. And then there are next week's orders, spilling from their file, with their attendant pre-planning, and early staging. And finding space in an already packed production calendar to fit in yet another thousand dollar order. (Such problems!)

Amidst all this hullabahubbub this afternoon, I suddenly had a vision, a revelation, an aha moment of where I could go for respite, for sanctuary: I could go to the new website, where everything is perfectly finished and perfectly arranged, neat cleaned-up rows of glass minus fingerprints and all the detritus left over from this thunderous production.


I know it sounds kind of wacky, but visualizing the site — without actually getting out of my chair and going over to the computer, but just imagining it — well, my frizzled synapses actually calmed a tiny bit. It's like there's this clean and quiet room, a meditation temple that I can visit any time desired, and all the chaos smooths out.

And seventeen boxes later, it was time for a nap:

photo by M. Wellsandt

Mary-Melinda Website! Live!

At long last, the glass-factory website is up and fully-functioning. Check out the full product range *here*.

It's been a long time coming!

Leaning into the Year

Yesterday was one of those early spring days when the temperature rises to an astonishingly ambient degree, so much that it's almost too much to believe — seems impossible — that there is indeed an end to the persistent grey and waterfalling skies.

It lingered into this morning as I walked to work, petals spilling from cherry trees with nearly every step. But there were clouds lining up in the west, impending.

And now here we are again, hunkered down against the rain.

I want summer to hurry itself up, but then that means that it will be closer to ending. Better, in my eyes, to linger in this anticipation, in these possibilities. Everything seems more possible in the spring, creatures that we are of regeneration, of rebirth. The older I get, the more deeply I slide into winter's chasm, into the darkness whose only respite is the moon on clear nights. But without the contrast of winter, what use would spring be? If I inhabited a more equatorial landscape, I do believe I'd long for the longer winter nights, and then the stretched out dusky midnight hours of June.

Yin/yang.

Even the trees with nearly imperceptible blossoms are exquisitely beautiful.

One Tulip, and Peeling Paint

Only one, because I never dug them up in the fall and separated them.
And peeling paint that will not get repainted, because the garage is falling down.

That's how it is.
And it's okay.

Fools

I don't seem to be able to write much in this space lately, seized with an atypical silence that is coming from a place deeply embedded in my cells. Or something like that.

The job today was overspilling with April Fool's jokes, starting with a faked bloody hand photo (my hand, perylene maroon paint as blood) on facebook: "On the way to get stitches".

We removed all but one of the "8.2" candy from the tin where it's stashed, sending M. into a minor tizzy.

I taped the toilet seat down with an "OUT OF ORDER" sign.

And lastly, I spun a fictional story to G. about an intimate relationship with a police detective we all know, and had him fooled for a good thirty minutes. G. even gave me relationship advice! I hadn't realized how adept I seem to be at, ahem, lying.

In case there's any question: yes, we also worked! Hard and diligently! Laughing!

I'm working on a poem about a bird nest, and found this stunning photo and text in the Wikipedia entry "Bird Nest":

"Like many small birds, the Purple-crowned Fairy uses considerable amount of spider silk in its cup nest."

Spider silk!
Ruby-crowned Fairy!
It's a found-poem-fragment!

Botox Ha!

Three times today at work, I laughed until tears ran down my cheeks. Once it was so bad that I had to lay my head down on the table. My stomach hurt. Bad! I tell you!

A NYTimes op-ed piece makes the case for getting botox injections so that your frown muscles cease to function. Apparently, in a study of 74 people, this caused an easing of depression. Kinda turns the case for therapy-to-feel-better on its head. Instead, it's do a happy dance first, feel better second.

Now, if this was the case, I'd never get depressed, because this laughing-until-crying 3x in a day is not unusual for me. Or maybe, if I stopped laughing-until-crying 3x a day, things would get really bad. Maybe this is my version of a control group of one.

Anyway, I would have it no other way, except maybe to bump up my numbers to, oh, 6x a day. Wouldn't want to rush into anything, though. God help us if there's too much laughing.

I'm going away for the weekend with three of my sisters, and I'm actually worried I'm going to laugh too much. We're bringing the game Balderdash, where you make up definitions for odd words and then vote on which one you think is the right definition. Last time we did this on a weekend getaway (about fifteen years ago), my stomach muscles ached for days after.

This is what made me laugh last night (and they sound more than just a little bit like Donald Duck):

Blog Post

One of my sisters complained this week re: my dearth of blog posts, of late. She said I needed some drama, something to write about.

I will say that the past three-month period has been, by far, the most calm period of the past fifteen years. A little weird to settle in-to, but I'm likin' it. Don't need no drama. (Although a little spice would suffice, say, maybe a quarter teaspoon or so.)


But here we are, another spring, another year of ripping the bindweed from the garden. My son and I filled the giant yard waste bin this morning, trimmings from the apple tree mostly, the tree that produces about a half dozen maggoty fruits. I think I like it better for its accumulation of lichen than anything else, and the birds that roost in its branches. Oh, and the short-lived blossoms. And the shade it provides for my kitty graveyard.

There's a hazelnut tree, a volunteer from, I'm guessing, a nut buried by a squirrel. The squirrels also harvest all the nuts. Alas, a the meager yield from my two-tree orchard.

I wish there were still surprises to be found in my garden, but I think those days are past. Once I found two Spanish coins while digging, and they were worth about two cents. Snails are recent migrants, and because their shells are so beguiling, I can forgive their slugginess.

But every plant, every weed has been seen before. Is this what happens when we age? I like to keep parts of my garden a little feral, so as to invite the unexpected. Maybe I need to tunnel into the ivy-rose bramble beneath the fir tree, where the cats hide. Maybe that's where I'll find something worth unearthing, some rusty hinge or remnant of fence that quietly tells its story.

Mop

It's really just a rearrangement of dirt: mopping. Before I mop there are spots and clumps of lord-knows-what on the tiles, and after I mop, it's all spread out evenly.

This is what I think when I mop the kitchen floor.

Other notable events:

1. the quince is blooming
2.

(Should really be "another notable event", but I'm optimistic that there will be more, and I'll come back and add #2.)

Praise to the Light

I really can claim no complaining rights when it comes to winter here, considering our more moderate climate, but this winter laid me low, pushed me under the rug, had me gut-punched with what seemed like interminable darkness. On and on.

We are creatures of the light.

And all of a right-now-sudden there's a whole lot of bursting open going on, ornamental cherries and grape hyacinths and daffodils and today I even saw a plum tree fully enlaced in white blossoms, so right out there and in-my-face that at first I thought it was just an overgrowth of lichen on an old tree. And suddenly also there is a scent in the air other than the steel-trap-shut scent of winter.

There's a sweetness, by god.

Painting, this morning, and suddenly, E., a young women who works for us, spontaneously burst out into laughter that went on and on. When I asked her what was so funny, she said, "not funny, but beautiful....  Look at these colors on these leaves! They're beautiful!"

And yes they were. A green with undertones of black to bring depth to the surface of the glass, then an overlay of maroon-bronze, feathered out from the tips. E. is still learning the nuances of this particular painting process, and she gets it — I mean she really gets it, like no one else I've taught.
She understands the subtleties, and how the lightest touch with the brush will alter dramatically the overall effect. It's thrilling to experience her process, how it is opening up to her, and how she rises to the challenge of it. And then today, when she vocalized her utter sense of joy with a full-on laugh.

Walking home tonight — in sunlight! — I counted on my fingers the months ahead of post-5pm daylight. Eight months! Count 'em — eight! To the naysayers re: DST, I say: BAH! I say bring it on. I sing hallelujah and praise to the light.

And there was a moment this morning, when I was walking outside between house/factory and studio, when the day was just emerging from the mist, and sunlight was breaking through from the east, and it seemed as if all of winter was being burned away in anticipation of Official Spring, still ten days hence. The air had a sound, a flat thud of a sound, minus depth or echo, and the light seemed to carry in its photons its own warm fragrance. A synaesthetic moment, to be sure.

Winter's Retreat

The sun came out this morning, flaring between gusty rain squalls and, being creatures drawn to light and the drama it creates with color & landscape, all three of us at work rushed to the window to behold what few moments the universe was granting us free of downpour. The year has made that subtle shift away from winter here on this continent's edge, and we who huddle too much in the shadows of mountains and evergreens, awash in infinite gravelly shades of grey — we live for moments like these, where the new greens of the grass appear illuminated, as does the thick coating of moss on the trees.

A. said: I bought [glass] color rods yesterday for my new project, two shades of green, one like the grass and the other like the moss.

And then, just as quickly, the rain blew back in, and we returned to our tasks, that luscious green existing, at that moment, only in a tube of paint. I rustled around for it in the paint box, my brain humming with possibilities.

I love this sign.

Hangin' with the Tribe

I've been walking around in a funk/pout/sulk all week because the AWP Writer's Conference was in Seattle and I wouldn't be going, all economic things considered. I mean, a serious sulk — I could hardly stand to be with me. I mean, what am I, a two year old? (Well, um.....)

Anyway.

I did go to the AWP Bookfair today, open to the public FOR FREE. Damn it was good. I milled around amidst thousands of people who, like me, treasure the almighty written word above almost everything else. It was like a club meeting of the one club where I'd be a member, except I'd got there at the very end of the meeting, but it was okay because everyone was in high spirits and there was table after table (800+ tables) of letter-press books and poetry mags and just plain people who love the whole shebang as much as I do.

Glory be.

Apart from feeling like I'd missed most of the show, I'm so very glad I went. Saw lots of people I know, made a bunch of new connections, and just plain was in awe of some of the work I saw: hand-crafted books with amazing art and, well, some damn fine writing.

Good stuff on a Seattle grey day.

How It Is

It seemed long past quitting time, but I was finishing a piece of glass, buffing out the residue left by the oils post-firing, when I noticed that the colors on the glass were the same colors as the sunset: payne's grey, yellow ochre, turquoise blue.

Art imitates life.
Life imitates art.

Or, rather:
art is life.
Life is art.

And people, that is how it is.

Myths, Chickens, Alarm

My son recently turned me on to Joseph Campbell, the American mythologist, writer and lecturer, so one day this week, when we were sitting around the big table painting, we listened to some of "The Power of Myth", with Bill Moyers. (Highly recommended.) It's deeply affirming, powerfully moving stuff —and I'm still in the early stages of digesting it, so I won't venture to comment much yet. But in the midst of the second episode, we were interrupted by two men picking up a large shipment of work for the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art gift shop, and one of them began a story of their most recent house-sitting adventure, which I'll write here in my own words:

"There were goats and chickens on the property that we had to take care of, and the owners said that we needn't do much with the chickens, just throw them some food every day, because they were old chickens and long past laying. 

Well, chickens were new to me, so I decided to see just what they were about. I swept up their sawdust every day and sprinkled new sawdust. I brought fresh water and food, and just hung out with them at least once a day. 

And I began to cluck, you know, those little buck buck buck sounds. And they began to talk back to me. It was really sweet! They were kind of a kick. I really liked them.

And guess what — they began to lay again. Eggs! We had fresh eggs from those old hens who supposedly were done with their laying days."

Well, of course I couldn't help but tie this in to what we'd been listening to — the serendipity of this man walking into our afternoon with his unassuming story of the traveler who appears one day and changes the shape of things, who performs miracles, a kind of refigured loaves-and-fishes tale. Our very own living myth-maker, our teller of parables.

These were the gifts of the week — Joseph Campbell, and then the interlude of the chicken story.

Outside of this, the week was swirled in a kind of chaos — our show materials shipment arrived back home from the east coast, three pallets full,  and as it was unpacked, I had to examine and polish each piece and then repack in new configurations, to go to the photographer. (Hundreds of pieces.) Shipping materials everywhere, and we work in a small space. And glass being sand-blasted, painted, fired. Orders going off to all corners.

We're also sifting through legal issues and fallout concerning last summer's glass-smashing, as well as recent events (of which I won't write here). Issues of security and law-breaking, of locks and keys, and violation. We've been on the cliff-edge of alarm.

I'd much rather spend my days contemplating things like this:


"Eternity isn’t some later time. Eternity isn’t even a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now that all thinking in temporal terms cuts off. And if you don’t get it here, you won’t get it anywhere. The problem with heaven is that you will be having such a good time there, you won’t even think of eternity. You’ll just have this unending delight in the beatific vision of God. But the experience of eternity right here and now, in all things, whether thought of as good or as evil, is the function of life."    —Joseph Campbell

That about sums it up.

I went to the altar of poetry, lit up with love.

Last night, as I drove to my weekly open-mic (as close to a notion of "church" as I'll get), my headlights lit the road brightly before me, and yet there was a less discernible glow coming from mysef as well.

I'd asked one of my sons if he'd replace a burned-out headlight bulb, and he not only did it, but taught my other son ( who is not quite the handy-man type) how to do it as well. And that made me beam, a bit, the notion of my path being lit by a collaboration of my sons.

And yes, the poet in me wants to haul out all the metaphors for a mother lighting the way for her children, but I'll refrain. Yes, as mothers we do that, instinctually. Not necessarily as instinctual for one's offspring to pay back the favor. Hoped for, yes, but not expected.

It was a small thing, but made all the more meaningful upon my return, close to midnight, driving the mostly-unlit lake route back to my house.

So lucky to have two sons!

Left Out —

The James Fenimore Cooper volume, abandoned to the elements —

Made blurry not only by the trick of a filter, but by the persistent rain loosening the ink on the decades-old pages —

And a red wagon —

I walked around the winter garden this afternoon just as a new storm was moving in, taking stock. I repaired the fence with bits of wire and hung up a bird feeder blown down in a voluminous wind. Snowdrops were up, pushed through the autumn leafage.

Afterwards, I came in to see this short film, making the rounds on facebook. If you've yet to see it, it's worth the four minutes of your time. How massive is our footprint in comparison to a population of deer in Yellowstone, and how profound the impact has been on the entire ecology in that patch of earth just by a shift in the numbers of a single species.

More, Please

Mysterious.....

This package arrived on the back porch at work yesterday, addressed to the boss, who was on her way home from NYC —

We were intrigued by the customs declaration that it was a toy, and that the value was $4000. What the heck? Just what has she been up to?

I texted her the first two photos shown here, and got my answer:

Neither toy, not $4000, but our favorite candy, the milky caramelly "8.2", shipped via Amazon Prime, from Japan. I'm guessing that it was a drone delivery, from across the great wide Pacific.

Waning Winter

There's light now at 5pm, and I know it happens every year and every year it seems like a bit of a miracle or a large part of a miracle or even an entire miracle unto itself. The return of the light, and 5pm is one of those pivotal times, a shift from day into evening, a letting-go of the workday and letting oneself into the last interval of aliveness in a single day.

Every year I wait for it and every year it surprises me, like there's a small part of me that doesn't believe it's going to happen, that maybe we'll be forever plunged into short days and interminable nights.

O lordy this is getting to sound grim.
Best to end here.