Ornamental

briefly...

i want to say a lot of things today, but time is short, and growing shorter every minute that loudly clicks right on by.  i want to tell you that it has been raining, steady and predictably, here for the past three days, and the sun is finally, gratefully, back out in full force again this beautiful autumn morning.  i want to ask you if you've ever enjoyed walking in the rain, even when you didn't want to at first, even when you thought you'd rather stay in with a hot cup of tea. we went in the rain, because we've been going every single morning, and because i know how much better i feel, and walter too, when we've had our three mile walk out under the trees.  we went, because i've been pining for rain, and because there is a different smell in the air this time of year that is heightened by moisture, by water falling through the leaves. i love that the rain makes everything glisten; i love that there are reflections of the sky and trees at my feet.  i love that i can take spontaneous photographs, thanks to the phone i've remembered to tuck deep within my dry pocket, and capture these beauties in the pouring rain. (i love that walter's blurry nose snuck into this one, too.)  it was a childhood's pleasure to be walking down a trail as the rain came down, seeing no one else for the hour we were there, wearing my black rain jacket with the thousand little midnight stars of rain glistening across my shoulders, my back.  i sparkled like a clear sky at midnight.  i wanted to tell you this, and so i have. now, back to the (blurry) studio, where mayhem always reigns.  as messy as it is, i find great peace and clarity working here.  some pieces i've made to carry with me to portland have unfolded these past few weeks; a large portion of them have been assembled in completion since returning from my week's sabbatical in alabama.

i leave you with this, taken while walking early this morning, as the mist was lifting up out of the valley and into the trees......xo
 

self portrait friday - rituals and routines

i've been trying to settle back into my beloved routines here at home, before i have to head out once again for yet another road trip at the end of next week.  this time, i'll be flying out to colorado to spend a few days with my older son robin, in the rocky high mountains where he has moved (snow is due any day now, says he) before flying on to portland, oregon to teach a three day jewelry workshop and sell new lovelies at the vendor show.  i'm realizing now how important it is to me to have some semblance of a routine in my every day life, to feel comforted by the repeated things i do from day's early beginnings to the last thing at night before turning out the light.  i read a friend's blog post last week that asked her readers what rituals they like to perform in their every day lives, and i've thought about this ever since.  my habits bring me great solace and comfort; the predictable acts i perform settle me in ways that would most likely seem mundane and lackluster to others: i've begun walking these past few months on a religious daily basis, finding great peace in the pre-dawn moments when i struggle to rise to the wakeful surface in bed, when i walk out into the dark with walter, when we get in the car just as light is falling through the trees and onto our shoulders, onto our feet.  every morning we drive the 15 minutes to the great smoky mountain national park (lucky me!!!), and every morning we walk through trees that keep the trail in dim velvet light.  we walk for an hour, we listen to the birds that are beginning to stir, we wait to see if elk are stirring as well.  this morning brought me the incredible gift of a full harvest moon, setting over the early morning mountains in a sky that was palest sunrise pink.  there was perfection in that.  there was the beauty of the unexpected gift.  halfway through our walk, at the 1.5 mile point where we turn around and retrace our steps back to the car, there is a lovely expanse of open meadow, a split rail fence along buildings that were reconstructed from old homestead lumber, from farms of long ago that were brought from there to here.   

often there is mist that hovers over the wide open space, there is mist that lingers over the many valleys we pass as we head home.  this is firefly road in the early morning, after the walk, shrouded in mist.  this is my home, how i love it so!after our every day early morning walks, i end up back in the studio again, hammering words into silver that echo the beauty that i walk through every day, words that remind me of whispered mantras or blessings, reminders of the quiet life i choose to lead.

at four in the afternoon, i stop long enough to heat water for tea, i have the tea in a lovely teacup with perhaps an almond cookie, perhaps a tiny italian puff of crisp meringue.  i work until 6, when walter and i go down to the lower yard for a session of ring toss.  it is a good time of sitting on the bottom steps, of looking up to the branches overhead, of breathing in the cooler late day air, of watching walter be beside himself with unadulterated, goofy joy, and then watching him relax, as falling leaves surround us with unspoken blessings of gratitude and calm. and before lights' end, i come out to the deck, when the sky is all soft, and read a little bit, i drink water to connect my soul to the earth, to the memories of my river, once again. i eat dinner, i read a book, i go to bed.  sounds dull when compared to having a baby, starting a business, falling in love, walking the great wall of china, breathing slowly and deeply in an ashram.  but the routines and the day in day out of my quiet little life bring me great clarity, and comfort, and calm, which aren't bad things at all for this mid life woman, this reclusive artist, who loves her days, her nights, her dreams.  i ask you what lorrie asked last week, then:  what are your rituals, your comforts?  what brings you balance and peace?

next week:  on the road again.  hello, robin!  hello students.   hello, old and treasured friends.  hello again. xo

first light

i am getting up, now that i am home again, long before daylight has begun to seep into my little world; it is dark, very dark, when walter and i step outside for his first little break, it is dark when i get dressed into my walking togs, it is barely light when we hop into the car to drive over to the river and walk the sleepy trail.  there are so many wonderful things to see there, when first light comes.  do you spot the elk, standing squarely in the trail?  we stood there staring, the elk and walter and i, before my four legged charge left that four legged creature to his own morning rituals.  i could hear large twigs snapping; there were others nearby, some seen standing in the river.  reluctantly we turned and went back in the opposite direction.  time stood still, a little bit; i didn't mind at all.  this is their world, theirs and the river's and the trees'.  we are temporary visitors.  i honor that, with little leaf prayers falling down around me. the prayers float and linger at the water's edge, they are a surprise for me with the little buckeye husk boats, bobbing in the early morning light. it is a lovely thing to be there surrounded by quiet, listening as the birds begin to stir, listening as the water rushes by.  no one else is there.  it is such a solitary place, this time of year.  i count my blessings, as the leaves fall.  i take a deep breath, and then another.  i am so very blessed. i do not ever take these moments for granted.  i know how full of grace my life can be, when i stand and gaze at the light on the water's surface, when i see the light filtering down through the yellowed green of the leaves. no cars pass over me, on this bridge.  i see no one.  they don't see me.  it is a gift to have this time, to walk in this soft light. and when i'm done, i come home and, using my own two grateful hands, i make the things that celebrate celestial beings, i make the things that celebrate the light.

from mary oliver's radiant new book of poetry/prose, Swan:

How I Go to the Woods

Ordinarily I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable.

I don't really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds or hugging the old black oak tree.  I have my way of praying, as you no doubt have yours.

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible.  I can sit on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned.  I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing.

If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much. 

xo

self portrait friday - we were so young then

this is part of a black and white portrait that hangs in the hallway of my parents' new house.  it is my favorite photograph of a time long gone.  we were so very young then!  we had so much ahead of us, and i didn't have that much of a history, didn't have much that i had left behind.  if you stepped back in the hall to get a bigger look, you'd see my brother ben sitting there to my right, his hand on my shoulder; you'd see my sister ellen sitting to his right.  the photograph was taken by a man named al james, in auburn alabama, who had been a favorite professor of my mother's, when she was an art student there; he took the portrait as a gift to her.  i remember stepping out of the curb that morning onto the step-up sidewalk, concrete at my feet.  i remember that he had to pencil in a spot to hide the white edge of underwear that was peeking out from under my brother's shorts.  my mother made my dress; it was a tiny gray and white gingham check, with a linen peter pan collar, starched and crisp.  i remember sitting one day in class, a couple of years later (with the hem let down), drawing with a pencil under the collar, where i didn't think my mother would ever see.  of course she did.  she saw everything, it seemed.  i remember how much my parents loved the auburn campus, loved everything about that place.  it's where they fell in love.  no wonder they felt that way.  i remember the fuzzy place where we sat to have our portrait taken.  i remember this place as being black and white, or maybe sepia.  it was a long, long time ago.  i was so young.  my mother was so beautiful.  she seemed to shine into that camera lens; we seemed to shine as well.  i was bashful.  i was young.  it was a long, long time ago, in a place that seems very far away.  i remember.  i was young then.  there was nothing behind me, and everything - oh, everything! - ahead.  xo

detour

this is what i was supposed to see when i got home yesterday afternoon.  i was actually looking forward  to the six hour drive, when i could resume listening to jonathan franzen's new novel, freedom.  (what's amusing about listening to it in the car is the fact that a main character is named walter, and his name is uttered with emphasis a lot.   my four legged walter doesn't quite know what to think about hearing his name spoken loudly over and over again). i was really, really relishing the notion of the much, much cooler mornings and nights, and for that matter, the cooler days.  here in alabama, the temperatures have been reaching 97 every.single.stifling.afternoon.  i was feeling a little girl's excitement about waking up early, as i've been doing for the past three months, waking up early with walter and slipping out the door by 7:15am, walking out into mornings that are soft and white with fog. i 've been pining for my morning walks along the river, searching with walter for fallen buckeyes, drinking in the hay-sweet early autumn air.

i was thinking about my final hours of this summer, as they hovered mid afternoons and slipped away evening's rapid fall.  i wanted all of these things, i guess i wanted them selfishly. work beckons, more than usual:  in two weeks, i'll be walking back onto a plane and winging my way out west to portland to teach a three day jewelry class (i think there are perhaps three spaces left - i wish you'd join us there!); there are kits to assemble, sterling sheet to cut, jewelry to make for the vendor show.  and on my way out west, i'm stopping over in colorado for four days and nights to spend some time with my robin in his new rocky mountain stomping grounds.  he's been sending me photos of his 25 year old hand holding various heart rocks, holding them out to me.  i love that my boys still search for the hearts, i love that they save them for their grateful mother.  i love that they do that for me. anyway.  for now, i'm still in alabama, and will be until thursday:  my mother is due for another round of surgery tomorrow, this time on her nose, to remove a spot of cancer.  she'll be put to sleep, but will come home later in the day.  my sister ellen, who'd planned to drive her to the hospital, to be with her for tomorrow night, has come down with a bad cold and wisely suggested i stay.  so stay, i shall.  i'm keeping both my mother and my father company, i'm trying to find work that i can keep on a tray in my lap while sitting on the sofa and listening to daddy ramble round and round in repeated circles of "conversation", as he does.  i walk around the block with my mother and the pups at sunset, we see the moon grow from the barest trace of a sliver to a fat pearly crescent, night by night.  we drink our glasses of wine, we talk about books (my mother and i), and daddy tells me over and over how glad he is that i've decided to stay.  he can't remember that my mother had surgery a month ago, he doesn't know she'll be going back in tomorrow.  work can wait, i remind myself; it always does.  the river will too;  more water will flow where once other water rushed, it always always does.  my family can't be put on hold.  we carry ourselves, this way.  xo

on being small again

last week i finally began to fall in love with my new phone.  well, really, with the phone's camera, and specifically, the phone's retro camera abilities.  you saw me use it on a bridge and river and an ancient hidden church, i used it on walter, i even used another version on myself (not an easy thing to do, a little like walking backwards and patting your stomach and your head all at once).
  i've resisted these things, for so long; i've seen ample use of i phone camera shots, all looking dreamy and filmy, the same scratches crossing the same patterns, flowers and grass stalks and seashells and river stones that look like they'd been pulled from a forgotten photo album, over and over again.  now just look at me.  i just can't make myself stop.  even the mistakes are pleasing to me, like i've stepped back in blurry time decades ago, when i was an innocent girl, thinking innocent things. i've been down in the heart of alabama with my parents this past weekend, celebrating both of their lives, celebrating the 83rd birthday of my beautiful trooper of a mother.  it's been a joy and a little poignant and sad as well, as things in life at this stage often are; my father declines, my mother recuperates, we all spend time talking louder to one another, repeating ourselves a lot, laughing, sighing, listening, sitting quietly while we read, work stitches or on jewelry, even while we collectively, blankly stare into blurry space.  you know:  family. it is sunday.  it was a beautiful day.  sometime towards the end of a lingering hot afternoon, my mother suggested we go for a ride, the three of us, an old fashioned sunday drive that took us nowhere and everywhere, out of town within five minutes and down winding country roads that shimmered in the 96 degree day's end sun.  my mother took the wheel, and daddy was the diligent co-pilot and commentator; i snuggled into the leather back seats, content to stare out the windows and chatter about trees, meadows, dilapidated houses leaning westward, towards the sinking sun. i loved being the little girl in the back again - both parents in the front, my mother in control.   the air conditioner was on full blast, there were few other cars on the road this time of day, and i finally thought to pull out my slender phone and snap away at vistas streaming past my spotty window, there in the quiet cool of my shaded back seat. daddy hadn't wanted to go, he typically dragged his feet; now he will not quit talking about heading down rural roads that he knew as a child, seeing fields that remain as they did 80, 100 years ago.  i love days like these.  

  it was nice to see my mother steering us down these black ribbons of road; it was lovely to sit and say nothing, to sit and chatter in unpredictable bursts.  life is such a ride, anyway.  we ride, we hold on, as they say.  we hold on for life while it whips past and through us, a blur.  a big and beautiful, splendid blur. the shadows grew longer, as they always do, and the day began to fold inside itself, to end. i had seen some beautiful and ordinary things.  of course i had; it was a beautiful, ordinary day.  it was everything. xo

briefly...self portrait friday

i'm not at home -

i've just blown in off the highway -

it is friday,

and this is how i look today,

this late afternoon

away from home. 

the phone camera snapped an image of me

before i'd even known.

here's wishing you all

deep blue skies,

certain mornings,

restful afternoons

and time with loved ones,

time with yourself.

remember to count the beautiful things,

to take deep breaths,

to put your feet in grass

or on a soft carpet,

it matters not,

as long as your feet are bare.

be kind to yourself.

love someone back.

always,

love someone back.

hard.

xo

thank you, summer

i've had such lovely days in my life...

watching the water swirl and flow, watching it wind out of sight from above...

standing on a rickety one lane bridge in the middle of nowhere, looking up to blue, down to the water below... picking up shards of water, shards of sky and holding them back up  into the light...

 

i wake early, and walk long, and find magic in places tucked well out of sight...

this quiet, heartbreaking, beautiful beautiful world is mine.  i don't take one step in this path for granted; i don't see one single leaf falling, twirling yellow in the afternoon sun, without saying a little leaf prayer:

and i find my sacred places everywhere i turn, inside and out.  thank goodness for out.  i feel the sacred in the outside, most of all.

i am grateful for this most amazing day
for the friends i have, the places i've been, the person i am

and for the dancing leaves.  let's not forget to love them, one by one. xo

******

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

                                                    - e.e. cummings

self portrait friday - last light

yesterday at the end of the day, i sat down briefly to watch bits and pieces of a wonderful, wonderful movie that always makes my eyes fill up a little bit with tears.  the day was just about gone, there was a pink glow that washed over everything for a fleeting three or four minutes, soft time that hovered with the light.  i love the light, like this.  it makes everything feel winsome and hopeful and a sweet peace washes over my quiet little world for the night.  it is my hope that your world is full of tender moments such as these. xo

seeking light

where i sit to write most things, here at my little blue-green wooden desk before the wall of windows, there is an amazing amount of light that spills in through the glass, onto the floor, onto my feet, and as autumn and winter progress, across the oriental rug.  in summer, there is no direct light, which makes photographing small objects - jewelry, beach glass, any number of things - both a challenge and a delight.  translucence is good; i like to see how the light changes the body of something, how it highlights what some might consider flaws, while others - myself, for one - like to think of as attributes and strengths.  blemishes, wrinkles, dents and scrapes are all a part of growing deeper, wiser as we age; and light, i think, is good at shining through and through.  light shifts, and the countenance of an object takes on another dimension, begins sometimes to glow.  look here: and here, again: and finally, kindly, here: it is a good thing, i suppose, that i do not work before these southern windows; i would not get much done for all the dreaming.  can you see my tender dreams? most days, i wander quietly back to the studio,, with my little four legged shadow trailing not so far behind, and tinker away until the last of the sunlight is falling across the western sky.  i turn my dreams into ornament, into something tactile to wear around one's wrist.
  something to remind.  something to catch the light.  something to reflect. oh, the dreams we carry in our hearts.  i'd like to think that dreams can be worn as loveliness, wrapped around one's wrist. life is made of dreams, i think.  and when we dream, we touch even the faintest traces of light, and walk (or fly) the path of life, of this, and this, and this. xo

To the Light of September

When you are already here

you appear to be only

a name that tells of you

whether you are present or not

 

and for now it seems as though

you are still summer

still the high familiar

endless summer

yet with a glint

of bronze in the chill mornings

and the late yellow petals

of the mullein fluttering

on the stalks that lean

over their broken

shadows across the cracked ground

 

but they all know

that you have come

the seed heads of the sage

the whispering birds

with nowhere to hide you

to keep you for later

 

you

who fly with them

 

you who are neither

before nor after

you who arrive

with blue plums

that have fallen through the night

 

perfect in the dew

                        - w.s. merwiin

quiet change

there are so many signs, early these mornings when i'm walking, of autumn in the air.  the smell of it hovers, briefly, as i walk along the river before the sun has risen above the mountains, through the trees.  it smells of old leaves, and aging hay.  and sometimes, when i'm lucky enough, it smells sweetly of overripe muscadines that are hidden in the trees. i leave the house just as daylight comes; i've not had any coffee or tea; the drive is 15 minutes of mist and quiet. this is how my mornings begin, these days, with greys and whites and softest lingering green in the meadow at the end of the trail.  leaves are beginning, already, to fall; one fell, in slow winding motion, as amber there in the air before me; it fell as crisp gold, into my outstretched hand.  early today i searched for buckeyes, shiny brown marbles scattered on the forest floor.  i found two for my growing collection, and held them in my pocket, warm, next to my skin, as we ambled back through morning tree shadows towards the car. things are slowly changing here: a new month and season are tacked to the bulletin board; i shift from tank tops to sweatshirts in the morning, back to short sleeved shirts later in the afternoon.  walter moves from the hardwood floors to doze on the sofa once again.  the birds are quiet.  the trees don't move.  the sun is moving back across the floor here under my desk, it will all too soon be time to lower the wooden blinds instead of leaving them, as i do in summer, up from morning til night til morning again. these days of winding down are telling me things.  i hear them call to me - they call in the stillness of the afternoon, the early arrival of stars in the twilight sky.  i think of hot tea once again.  i think of writing on soft paper and folding it into quarters and eighths and cutting into a string of young girls covered in my writing, holding hands; i think of tucking notes to myself into poetry books on the shelf or into long-abandoned shoes on the floor, i think of finding those words some late evening when i am listening to the rhythms of my heart.  i think of my heart; i hear my heart whispering in the wind.   come then, autumn:  i see you standing there, quietly, in the corner, sticking your head out shyly before withdrawing it again.  i am ready, i think, for you to slowly begin. 

“What is uttered from the heart alone,

Will win the hearts of others to your own.”
                                - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

xo