Verbs

There was frost this morning. Gossamer. The ghost of winter creeping among the still-green clover and hip high grass . Autumn, with the flight of a hundred thousand monarchs suddenly southwards, is here. Prussian skies. The harsh calling of geese. Water, low in the creeks, reflecting the first flame flecked leaves on the maples.
It […]

Doing:

* Writing, writing, writing, writing. In my sleep I dream of keystrokes and perfect endings.
* Eating freshly made biscuits, panchetta, and eggs with DH and Bean. Listening to jazz and sipping a cappuccino. A perfect morning.
* Mourning the loss of my two last hens: the weasel came back. My father in law shot him, and […]

Today as a (totally bummer) postcard:

I woke up late this morning. In the night the power had gone out and my alarm clock was blinking 3:45. I was late to a staff meeting.
The children were needy, needy, needy today.
I came home to a missing rooster who had been chased down the road to my neighbor’s house (several hundred […]

Puny

I have unreasonable expectations, constructed on scaffolding I can hardly climb, and from up there I sometimes get vertigo. When I sit down to do art, I feel them creeping up : that I’m not doing more, or better work. That it’s not good enough. It’s so lame, this inner voice. So useless, yet there […]

Dig in and read.

It is midwinter here in my small corner of the world and also in my blue-roomed heart. I’m tucked in, my pulse moving slowly and full of trepidation like water running under pale knocked together shards of ice. Self doubt circles like a pack of coyotes, their tracks mushy and dark where the earth collapses, […]

Leap

I sat down tonight to paint the way Bean does–with color first, then the image taking shape. I had no plan, no illustration in the back of my head, just the commitment to take a small corner of time out of my day to do art this month. It feels good to keep returning […]

My secret inner superhero

The other night I was talking to a friend. He said, “I don’t know, I guess I still feel like somewhere inside me is an inner superhero.”
I’m right there with him.
I still have that feeling: like one morning I’ll wake up and miraculously be able to live full throttle—without the shredded edges of tiredness […]

Vermillion

Across the snow, the cardinals dart, the vermillion hearts of winter. The wind pulls the mercury down below zero, and the air bites bare skin. Water is glassy under ice in the chicken coop in the morning, and the sun, when it shines is followed by a sun dog, the sky frosted but blue.

Create, live with abandon.

The snow is falling outside, making everything like a milky dream. The trees are flocked with white, and I can’t remember the scent of summer: cut grass, ripening blackberries, dust rising up from the dirt road; in the same way I can’t really remember what last year was like, so much uncertain, heartache like broken […]

Good times + Art Everyday

Happy & merry to all of you!
It has been a BUSY week. (Thank you for all the well wishes!) I’ve somewhat recovered from the most horrible sinus infection/fever combo I have ever had. The word misery does not even serve it justice. Seriously awful.
But, I’m mostly better, and we had a wonderful Christmas. […]