i live
in the land
of farms
people from
cities
don’t understand
what that
means
(i learned this
from a former
city dweller)
in my world
there is
space
.
.
.
wide field
deep sky
lone tree
standing tall
to guard
corn
wheat
or soy
in the
evening
driving
home
a lone car
on the road
in the
distance
becomes
beacon
for a
journey
never
traveled
.
.
.
this year.
i can’t keep up with anything.
then again, most days i’m glad i’m not in the race.
it’s become the year of silence. of thinking. cringing. thinking some more.
but no matter how many ways i try to separate good and evil, noble and sinister, right and wrong, i just keep coming back to that same thought.
we all have a heart.
perhaps some of us have ours in the wrong place, but who’s to say?
not me.
i’m just going to sit here and watch the flowers grow.
listen.
learn.
hold tight to all the questions
and keep my own heart on my sleeve,
right where it’s always been.
.
.
.
I’ve been working on a big design project all week, big as in lots of work hours crunched into a very short time span, head down, late nights, no free time besides sleep.
And this morning I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, so I decided to catch up on the news because I haven’t paid attention to anything other than work since Monday. And now my heart is heavy.
It’s so hard to love the world sometimes, so hard to stay positive when all around there is heartbreak and tragedy and devastation.
Sometimes, all you can do is hold tight, and send your heart out there yet again.
Even as you know it will be broken.
Because the world needs more heart.
And sometimes, that’s all there is to offer.
xoxo
.
.
.
.
I placed this Solomon’s Seal in an entirely different spot in my garden, years ago. For most of those years, it struggled, sending up two or three shoots and then quickly fading as spring turned to summer.
Now, here it is, moving itself around the landscape, seeking the perfect light-shade-soil combination on its own. An independent learner, self-motivated, a survivor. One that apparently loves long, hard, extremely cold winters.
As my garden ages, it makes its own plans, completely ignoring the best-laid of mine and filling in the blanks as it so chooses. I’ve become less keeper than companion, and most of the time, I resist the urge to fight for control. I let the wanderers wander. It’s better that way, for both of us.
It took me fifty-two years to begin to understand. And I still slip, there are still times when I make every attempt to wrestle my way to the top. Sometimes, I even manage to win. But mostly, I just get tired of the struggle. And giving in has its own rewards, too.
Another lesson learned in the classroom of garden.
I sit here with my tea. I pay attention.
I watch and I listen and I sit.
And the world washes over me.
.
.
.
It’s the shadows that reveal the pattern: dark light white, dark light white. The days roll into a fog of sameness, and I am stuck, wallowing in boredom, or ennui, or something worse: a voice that whispers not good enough.
Habits form and are broken. Wounds heal and become scars. Time is relentless and finite and never sits still.
Chaos is the natural order of things. We fight it, stacking plates and sorting socks, pushing snow and building walls, but it’s always there, lurking around every corner.
I kind of like that.
Except when I don’t, but that’s the nature of life.
I think a lot lately of a book that changed my life once, a very long time ago. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham. It’s essentially a book about giving up, accepting, trying less and being more. At least that’s what it was for me.
The joy of sinking into who you are rather than who you want to be.
Walking into the sea of self and washing yourself clean of life’s dust.
Standing naked in today’s mirror and not cringing at your own humanity. Not wishing to be something or someone or someplace other.
I cook dinner and wash the plates. Again and again and again. I tidy the room and sweep the floors and straighten the papers on my desk.
The chaos always returns.
We spend our lives fighting for order in a world that offers anarchy.
And that’s the lesson. That’s the pattern.
Just now, the plates are clean.
.
.
.
an abundance of optimism
can’t ever be a bad thing
really
though sometimes the glare
can force you to turn
from those stricken
with the smile of this affliction
as you raise a filter
to the black hole sun
you grew up singing
singed by this little too much
and all that nothing
and color color everywhere
when some days you just want some
black and white
grey matters
taupe tenacity
anything to make you look away
because there is always dust in the corner
and hemingway said all you have to do
is write one true sentence
There is always dust in the corner.
.
.
.
we’ll have tea and talk about life
.
what i am wishing for in the midst of a week of overwhelm
.
cookies would be nice, too
.
.
.
I am so honored to have my poem “make-believe” published in Stampington and Company’s gorgeous new magazine, Bella Grace: Life’s a Beautiful Adventure.
To launch this first issue, Stampington set up a blog hop, as a way to introduce some of the featured artists and also to offer you a chance to win your very own copy! It really is a gorgeous publication, more book than magazine, filled with beauty and grace and words from so many fabulous artists.
In addition to the free issue, I’m going to send the lucky winner your choice of any 8×10 print from my etsy shop, and a pair of silver earrings as well! All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post before midnight on Wednesday, August 20th. I’ll announce the winner on Thursday, August 21st.
Stampington will be updating the blog hop page daily, so be sure to hop over and check out the other artist’s posts for even more chances to win a copy of Bella Grace.
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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The other day, I was painting outside… not art, but my house. Because it needed to be done and it was a perfect-painting-weather day and autumn will be here soon enough.
I was working away on the back entryway, repainting the door my dog insists on scratching when he wants in, and I heard a sound in the stones behind me (we have a pea gravel patio area). When I turned, I saw a very large toad hopping his way across the stones, heading right for the spot where I stood, like he was in a big hurry to get there. After he made it to the rectangle of sidewalk just outside the door, he stopped. And then, keeping one eye on me, slowly made his way over to the pair of sneakers my husband keeps tucked beneath a bench for when it’s lawn mowing time. I watched as my new friend climbed into one of the sneakers and settled in. Apparently, this is where he lives.
Later, as I was painting along, I had to move the bench and in doing so, scared Mr. Toad out of his hiding spot. Before I could stop him, he hopped inside the door I’d left open, and then hopped/fell his way down the basement stairs. And then I couldn’t find him. But two days later, just as I was throwing a load of wash into the dryer, there he was, hopping right up to me again, asking to be rescued. And so, Mr. Toad was set free.
This is my life.
And I am an artist.
When I was young, I thought being an artist somehow meant being special. Weird in a good way, extraordinary, or at the very least, different.
But I was young (and therefore somewhat foolish) and if there is one thing that life has taught me, it’s that I am just like everyone else. A perfectly ordinary woman living a tiny little life in a tiny little house.
If you met me at a party, you’d be quite bored. As an introvert, I’m not good at being charming or social, I don’t dress like an artist, I don’t look like an artist, I usually don’t even tell people I am an artist (unless, of course, they ask). I live in a small town in a very rural setting and my life centers around my family, nature and my garden, the seasons, my art. There’s no exciting city or cultural life going on here. In fact, most weeks, I leave my house 3 or 4 times total, and at least two of those excursions involve food shopping. I call myself a hermit as a joke, but the truth is, I’m pretty much a hermit.
Yet here I am, making my living as an artist. I wouldn’t say it’s an easy life, but somewhere along the way, ordinary magic found me–when I wasn’t even looking. I planted a garden and fell in love with the sky. My pencil found its way back to the page. My camera became a daily accessory. These days, I mark the passage of time by charting the seasons, and the friend I speak to most often is a mockingbird. (I could say it’s a cat, but I’m more inclined to call them family).
I spend my days making something from nothing, and there is no other word for that but magic.
A client needs a brochure, and from a jumble of words and thoughts and half-ideas comes the piece they pass on to their customers. I plant a tiny seed, and a few months later I have a flower. A pile of beads and silver becomes a lovely bracelet. A blank screen with a blinking cursor turns into a poem about love and life and supermarket flowers. A camera and a quiet moment become my latest favorite picture. A refrigerator filled with vegetables becomes the perfect pot of soup.
It’s all magic. It’s all so ordinary.
And it’s all art.
I sit outside when I can and listen to the world. Where I live, that means bird song and tractor sound, grasshopper whirs and wind in the poplars, hummingbird wings and toad feet on gravel.
But I am a busybody when it comes to art. There is never enough time and there are always words waiting to be written, weeds needing to be pulled, birds with new stories to tell. I do the best I can to strike a balance, but most days, I wouldn’t say I’ve succeeded. Most days, I work long hours on the work that pays the bills, and just a few on the work of my heart. But I always squeeze that time in, making it part of my daily existence, part of my ordinary, part of who I am. Art is what keeps me whole and centered and I have learned that, for me, there is no other way to be.
Art is life. Not some glamorous, mysterious pursuit. Nor some extraordinary gift. Not something to be kept in a box, only taken out on special occasions.
Art is the rain dripping from the tips of my favorite flower, the steam rising up from my first cup of tea, the pattern of my footsteps on this worn wooden floor. It’s washing dishes and making beds and painting scratched up doors. And it’s showing up, every day, to do the work. Again and again. The work of living.
Life is, indeed, a beautiful adventure. And ordinary magic is everywhere you turn.
In fact, some days it comes hopping right up to you and makes its home there, at your feet.
All you have to do is say, welcome.
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