pomegranatesandpaper

what me complain??

Oh, yeah, I didn't have anything to do, boo hoo! I forgot that my son's college applications were all due tomorrow at his guidance counselor. So from noon till 6:00, my husband, son, and I scrambled to fill out 8 applications with all sorts of arcane data. Son is now composing several different one-size-fits-all-essays and father and I are passed out from licking stamps and checking and double-checking. Now everything has to be photocopied (thank god I bought my own copier a few years ago!) Son is allowing me to edit his essay for grammar and punctuation, but isn't making all the corrections. I may divorce son within the hour....

Whining, an entry

Sunday, almost noon. Discovered that the creeping crud that has visited all weekend is definitely sinus-related. Been up since 5:00 nursing said sinus headache. So now it's quiet, we've had bagels and coffee, read all of the NY Times and the local paper, and watched all of CBS Sunday Morning. All children are either asleep or otherwise occupied and DH has disappeared in to the basement. Perfect time to write/do some art, no?

Instead, I'm surfing blogs and obsessing over why my hit count is so low. Then I get sucked into reading a published author's blog, complete with photos of her cute new baby. Her books aren't that good. Snipe! I feel a craving for a latte take over, following by a strong urge to run to Borders to buy the latest Artist's Sketchbook Magazine which has a story by someone I know featuring art journals by others I know (and none of mine).

Or I could sit here and write. Or get the canvasses out of the car and begin the backgrounds. Or work on the journal that's been lying open on my art desk for 2 weeks. Why do I do this to myself?

What is missing from my life that I'd rather buy art supplies and books and read about art and writing then DO IT?? I am a total dweeb.

True Colors

My sister and I managed to get to the very last day of Karen Michel's exhibit on Long Island. It was worth the wait! We met Carlos, her fiancee and an incredible artist, and talked with Karen for a little while. Carlos began CASK in 1996 and they have recently moved to their present location in Lynbrook. The gallery space is beautiful, with white walls and a blonde parquet floor. Carlos and Karen did all of the renovation work themselves. She has a large space in the back for classes and their studios. We could only chat for a few minutes because she was in the middle of teaching a children's class. A little boy came out while we were talking and asked Karen if he could use "the tape". Believe me, I wanted to get my hands on some of that metal tape myself! I never remember to go to an automotive store and look for it.

Karen's work is even more vibrant and lush in person, and she is the master of using found objects. Most of her mounted work is framed by old rulers, or the canvas is edged in the metallic tape, then studded with brads. Even up close, the tape and studs look like pierced tin. One of her journals, entitled "Book of Wonder" is about 2 feet by 2 feet and is bound by huge decorative hinges! Three of the paintings which I coveted had red dots, and I'm glad she is making some money at her passion She has both mounted artist's books and bound altered books.

It was incredible to see in person some of the journals that we've seen published in books and online. Julianna Coles has several journals there. One of them is large and just crammed with stuff. As Karen said, "There's a lot going on in those books!" Claudine Hellmuth's "green journal" is a petite, tiny altered antique photo album. I can't remember whose journal it is, but the copper and green journal has unbound pages and a gorgeous fabric cover that opens like a magic carpet. And Lynne Perella's white journal is absolutely dreamlike.

The show has been so successful that they've decided to make it a yearly event and intend to put out a call for art. They are particularly interested in altered books mounted as wall art, so start creating!. So many artists books and mounted pictures were a lot to absorb in about one hour's time. I would've liked to have had a cup of tea and a comfy chair and about three hours to look through them all leisurely. None of them were disappointing!

And what fun to be allowed to touch and turn pages and pull out inserts, etc. Karen encouraged us to open all the books, even the ones mounted on the walls.

After a nice lunch, my sister and I drove to the art store to stock up on canvasses. I also bought a big bottle of gesso, which Karen uses on everything, and I found some new journals that are square, spiral bound, and made up of 140 lb. cold press watercolor paper. I'll post the name later when I get them out of the car.

THE AZURE JOURNAL - WRITING A LIFE

I spend my days behind a desk, or in a court of law. I sit and wait for the clerk to call my case, or for the plaintiff's lawyer to finish his cross-examination. I sit in traffic on the way home. I stand in line at the grocery store, the pharmacy, the post office. I make dinner, clean up, and sort the mail. I listen to essays, ask quiz questions for math, and brush my teeth.

In my heart I am writing every minute, transcribing against the soft flesh of my core all the wonders I have seen today: the snips of conversations, the touch of hands, the soft music of mother and child, and the cacophony of distress.

I write webs around my self, around my children and my husband, soft, luminescent webs meant to protect and brighten dagainst the darkness that encircles and threatens to put out the light.

I write poems and stories about the life I live inside my head. The life where each day progresses in bright Kodachromes of love, work, and play. I dictate conversations with friends peppered with birthday dates and college plans, all bright balloons of words that pop one by one when I hang up the phone.

I draw long, complicated words out of the dictionary in my mind and splay them across surfaces of crisp, white linen, incising cursive swirls and cross-hatches black with emotion. My nib tears great holes in the laid surface and the rip is satisfying to my ear.

I transcribe a life that is expected of me: Daddies at work and Mommies at the grocery store, and children rushing to play with friends. I muster a poem of chores, an essay of bills, and a long, sweet ode to paint and paper.

I write a play of a couple sweetly dancing at the Rainbow Room, a husband tall and strong, his face unlined by pain and sorrow. The wife is slender and agile; her gaze rarely leaves her husband's face.

Exit stage left.

THE RED JOURNAL -Late Thanksgiving Night

I am waiting
for the sweet quiet
moments of candlelight
the lit tree
fire blazing
carols on the stereo

I am waiting
for the spark
of light against cold
a shooting star of hope
to ignite
dying embers
of a fierce late summer
blaze that warmed us
through the heady winesap
of autumn.

Glory be
I am yearning
to sit
before the round white
host ablaze
in its gold holder
a silent communion
eyes shut
the solace of soul
quiet
admidst the bustling
of curiosity.

Winterlight

They dragged me into the Christmas shop. Trying to perk me up, get me happy, forget about all the crap at home. It was too sunny and warm for Christmas trimmings and my mind was on cramming the shopping and cooking around work this week in time for the big Thanksgiving meal that still falls to me to do even though we both work full time.

This was the same store that sells patio furniture. The place last summer where the clerk couldn't be bothered greeting us or getting out from behind the counter when we wanted to know what sets were on sale. "Over there", he said, pointing vaguely in the direction of the entire floor of merchandise.

For Christmas they had cleared out all the summer stuff, and lthe place was loaded with trees, decorations, and giftware. Potpourri began making me sneeze as soon as we pulled open the door. Christmas carols blared over the loudspeaker, ornaments spun on trees, twinkling lights twinkled, music boxes chimed, and garlands were heavy with fake snowflakes and fruit. So much plastic and red! Too much gold and tartan!

I couldn't get into any of it and was sniffing in that snobby way where I pretend that I am the only person in the radius of one mile who understands understatement and natural fibers and where did all this ersatz crap come from? (My husband hates when I get like that. Too bad.) Since when did dogs need their own Christmas feeding dishes? What's with the mechanical mice with elf hats that run up wires on the tree? Creepy! The life-sized Nutcrackers were gathered menacingly in front of the entrance to Santa World. I wanted to see how many pre-schoolers would work up the courage to go in and see Santa if they had to pass that lot of grinning monsters without wetting their pants!

Some ornaments did catch my eye. There was a set of blown glass ornaments that were all the characters from The Nutcracker. They were silver and pink and very delicate. And $29 apiece! Another tree had very cool, oversized balls in 60's neon colors of magenta, chartreuse, sky blue, and cherry red. They were hand painted with whimsical, artistic Santa faces. I was ready to buy all six until I saw the price. $29 each again!

I decided to pout by the front door until my mother and sister could see that nothing they could do would make me happy today and they should stop trying because my life sucks and I am sick of it. Yeah. But as I stood by the entrance, I saw boxes of long tapers in dozens of warm colors. I did need some candles for the table for Thanksgiving. I began to search through the boxes for the right shade of green that would look rustic yet elegant in my silver candlesticks. Then I spied a display of candlesticks with candy cane stripes of red, green, and white. On the other side of the door was a wooden hutch with a display of over-priced candles that came in jelly jars and heavy corrugated cardboard boxes. I was rolling my eyes at the packaging, knowing it made up the high price, when I caught a whiff of "Gingersnap", and the aroma of my late aunt's gingerbread cookies flooded me with memories. Now I had the green tapers, the candy cane tapers, and the gingerbread votive in my arms. Suddenly a smiling clerk with a Santa hat appeared and handed me a basket. Oh. Thanks.

Around the corner under a fake tree decorated with swaths of hideous flocked velvet ribbons and fake jingle bells the size of an elephant's hernia, were chunky pillar candles in graduated shades of red to green, and an over-sized oval-shaped candle the color of butternut squash. There were candles round and white as snowballs, squat pillars with wax overlayers molded and painted to look like damask; candles in bright colors the shape of Christmas presents tied with ribbons; tapers that swirled like ribbon candy; serious two-foot pillars made of rich, creamy, tan beeswax that belonged in a church; and thick, stubby votives in velvety soft colors of jewels.

By now I had a basketful and laid them on the counter. As the clerk rang them up, I spied a basket of white tapers decorated with toys that had increments of 25 marked in black on one side. Advent candles, the clerk explained. I had to buy one each for myself and my sisters. She packed up the lot. By now, everyone was waiting for me by the front door. When we went outside, the sun had set and the streetlights were on. Despite the gloom, my mood lifted. The bag of candles rustled in their tissue paper in the brown bag and I set it carefully on my lap as my sister started the car. I looked at my mother and sister and realized I was the only one who had bought anything and had to laugh. Shopping always cures the blues for me.

When I got home, I placed the beeswax votives in demitasse cups and placed them in a circle on the oak dining room table like an early Advent wreath. I poured some Beaujolais into one of my great-grandmother's crystal wine glasses, the ones I never let anyone use for fear they'll break. All the stuff that had me in knots earlier in the day loosened with the wine. I raised the stemware in a toast to the coming Solstice, and sat in silence, watching the gray winterlight melt into the candle flames and listening to the earth creaking on its axis in one more rotation toward the light.

Norman Rockwell lived here

He really did. At least in the city I live in now. Thanksgiving to me is THE Norman Rockwell holiday. Christmas has too much religious and emotional baggage. Thanksgiving is pure American Romanticism. Right now I feel free - our office closed at 1:00 and I don't have to go back until Monday! So once I get this meal over with and cleaned up, I am a free woman. What to do?

I have in mind a trip to the city to some cool stores I've found. One has vintage cards and wrapping paper from the 1940's, Tinsel Trading. The other is also a very groovy kind of place, Mr. Pink. I'm always on the look out for cool and unusual ephemera and paper to use in collage and in my journal. I also want to go to Lynbrook, New York to C.A.S.K. which is curating a display of the art journals published in True Colors. If you are into art journals and collage, and you haven't heard of True Colors, you've got to check it out (and get out from under that rock!)

I am into gearing up for the holidays big time this year. If S. stays well and I don't lose my mind like last year, that is. We could take our long trek up to Rhinebeck, NY to buy an over-priced cut-it-yourself tree, but I'm not really in the mood this year because we were just upstate looking at colleges. I think this is the year to go to the corner lot and see what $50 bucks will buy. Simple and fast. I'd like to decorate this year without using any of our packed-away ornaments. If you saw "Elf", you'll remember the paper garlands he whipped up at the store for Santa's coming. I'd like to do everygreens, white paper snowflakes, and cool art cards to decorate the tree. Naturally, my kids and husband would freak out, so I will go with the family flow.

The strangest holiday decorating I've seen this year was in Country Living Magazine where they had a menorah decorated with chickadees. Is there some Judaic significance to chickadees that I am unaware of? Or was it just really bad editorial taste?

Happy Thanksgiving.

Hamster Wheel

Yesterday was our wedding anniversary. Like most of our anniversaries in the last 5 years, it comes at the peak of my d.h.'s ill health. I can't remember a holiday season in the past five years when we haven't been totally stressed out about his health and his losing his job or not being able to find a job. Last year, he injured his neck and was in incredible pain beginning Christmas Eve and going through the end of Jan. He spent Christmas propped up on my sister's couch for about two hours, then left, leaving me to drive home in the big blizzard while everyone was merrily partying. The next day our Christmas tree fell over and no one had the interest to fix it up, so we took ot down. I spent the rest of my vacation driving him to doctors and tests.

This time it caught me unawares since he'd been managing his health issues pretty well with plenty of rest and frequent chiropractor visits. So his fast descent into misery was a surprise, and the rug was pulled out from under us once again. I admit I don't handle any of it well. Friday night I had nightmares of being beaten up by an intruder in the middle of the night and woke up screaming in my sleep. I've begun the obsessive worrying. This is where I lie in bed at night and try to figure out how much equity we have in our house, where can I find a 3-bedroom apartment we can afford, how much a small condo would cost, whether I could pay the mortgage and monthly maintenance on my salary alone, and how I will return everything I've bought in the last month and not spend a discretionary penny ever again. This segues right into which combination of our kids I'll have to shove into one bedroom, how we'll buy a sofabed and sleep in the living room and give them the largest bedroom, how I'll manage to pack everything myself, how much we'll have to sell/get rid of, where will I keep my art supplies, how our kids will be devastated to leave the neighborhood, friends, and a house, where will they keep their bikes, and where will we all park now that the teens have their own cars.

Whew.

By morning I'm churlish and short-tempered and my poor dh gets no sympathy as he winces trying to put on his shoes. I'm in no mood to give him the anniversary card I'd bought and I am impatient with his hang dog look. In other words, I am a bitch. I managed to shove down most of my churning emotions, and we do get through going to the parade, the brunch at my sister's, and hanging out afterwards. It's no surprise the next morning when I have a headache that won't go away and acid reflux all day.

Have a holly, jolly Christmas. Yes, I am a bitch.

Come Saturday Morning

It's only 8:30 Saturday morning and I've already done my grocery shopping for T-day - online. Stop and Shop has a delivery service in my area. I started doing it about two mnths ago when I had been to the grocery store every night after work and we still didn't have anything in the house to eat. My husband used to have this chore but now that he's working full ti me again and nursing his back, it fell back to me. It's the greatest invention since indoor plumbing. I've screwed up a few time - the first time I got 5 packages of 5 hard rolls, instead of 5 hard rolls. That's why I have a freezer.
I've also gotten the world's smallest sizes of things. Apparently they are gearing towards the elderly, otherwise I couldn't imagine who could use 8 ounces of Aunt Jemima pancake mix. Otherwise, it's a dream. A young man with rippling muscles pulls up, carries it all in, places it on my kitchen counter - and all for 5 bucks plus tip. No affiliation with S&S, just a happy camper.

So that means that tomorrow, instead of racing to the stupid market as my friend calls it, I can use the morning for whatever I want. I am also going to take the plunge and try to do some of the dreaded Smas shopping. Would people be pissed if I gave everyone a sketch for Christmas? But wouldn't that be cool?

I'm going to buy bagels and then go to our town's Thanksgiving Day parade. This is the last one my son will play trumpet in since he's graduating. My 88 year old uncle also walks in the parade with the Elks. And my niece will be with her Brownie troop. All very Americana. Oh, and Mariano Rivera is the Grand Marshal. More about it later, including the dysfunctional family brunch that usually follows.

TGIF

It's Friday and the sun is shining after a week of miserable flooding rain and cold. Every night I've dragged myself home and burrowed under the covers as soon as seemingly possible. I can't keep my eyes open past nine o'clock. The journal in which I was painting background pages is sitting in the exact spot I left it Sunday night. It looks at me rather accusingly and I tell it I'm sorry and I'll be back in a day or so.

I am psyched to get going with my illustrated journal again. Unfortunately, Kate's Paperie has not called me in several weeks in regard to my order. I'd found the best journal there last year. It takes all media without buckling or bleed-through. At the time I only bought one and when I went back a few months later, they only had ones that were about 10" X 10", way to big for me to carry around. The saleswoman tracked them down and special-ordered three for me, but that was in the beginning of October and I haven't heard back since. I do like the Rag and Bone journals, but they bleed through with wet media and I used a lot of watercolor pencil and Peerless Watercolors. Right now I am using a spiral bound 5" X 5" journal with oatmeal -colored pages that is really a scrap book. I like spiral because it lies flat and this paper takes any media without a problem.

Two new books, or a zine and a book, has whetted my appetite for daily illustrated journaling. Dan Price has started up his Moonlight Chronicles again. I ordered the most recent copy and about 4 back issues. I haven't gotten through all of them but they are are small and I can put one in my suit pocket or my purse and read it in court while waiting for my case to be called. His drawings are simple and I study all of them to pick up tips on sketching. The second reason is a new book that was introduced by its author on a journaling list I am on. The book is called Everyday Matters . The author is an ad guy who started drawing when his wife was in a horrible accident. The book is filled with his pages, color and b/w, and I am drooling to get it just from viewing the sample pages at Amazon. So if you can't afford the book, go to Amazon and just look through the samples.

Dipping Into the Well

I've been kicking around this idea for another novel for about six months. It feeds into The Big Southern Novel (BSN) which is stalled at Chapter Six. I realize I"ve been focusing on the wrong person. So I can scrap the entire six chapter and begin again, then weave into it all the crap I like in the BSN and leave out the crap that led me nowhere. In the meanwhile, I am working on a new journal that I picked up at Barnes and Noble. It is a cool size (about 5 X7), and looks handmade. It's filled with very rough-textured paper, kind of Daniel Smither's Indian Village, but better bec. I don't like Indian Village. The cover is all textured and it will look cool painted. I painted the inside front covers with Golden's Rich Iridescent Gold over Lumiere olive green. I swear I could eat the Rich Iridescent Gold, or at least slather it on myself if it didn't cost an outrageous $28 a bottle! It was one of those typical instances where the guy at Pearl Paints had to go into the storeroom to find it for me and was gone about 20 minutes while everyone was waiting on line. When he came back I was too embarassed to admit that I had no idea it was $28 so I bought it. And didn't tell anyone what it cost except my sister, whom I charged $1.00 when she wanted to try it on some pomegranates (not to eat - to paint the skins).

Manana's Garden

Manana's Garden
exists in flashes of her mind:
it blooms in the bite
of peach
warmed by Sicilian sun
furry skin against her palate
juices drip onto
translucent flesh of her hand
caught in the
thin circle of gold
wedding band
too large now
for her hand.

We read like tea leaves
the remains of her cup:
did she drink all the
tea this morning
then she must feel better
we prognosticate
finding forget-me-knots
in the melody of bees
that catch her eye,
getting drunk on
lusty grape pollen
admist the arbor vines

Her mind peeled
away
like the layers of mica
we mined from the
driveway stones
and hoarded in our
pockets
until, finally, nothing
was left
but barren rock.

I keep hydrangea blossoms
heady blue
in her white irontstone pitchers
and rest my face in them
and think of her bosom
and the lunaria
she used to dry
and give us as coins
for the realm of childhood.

Tilting Towards Light

Each day the light grows shorter. I am impatient with this steady erosion of daylight. I yearn for total darkness when I put the key in my car on the way home from work at 5:00. The sooner it is pitch dark by 5:00, the sooner the light returns. The darkness comforts me. I feel like withdrawing right now. And I feel the giddy rush beginning to build toward the holidays. I am tired of doing. I'd like a week of thrashing rainstorms and cups of Earl Grey tea. I could stay in my gray velour robe and wear the wild leopard fuzzy slippers that Julia gave me last Christmas, listen to my new Liz Phair CD, write in my journal and paint books.

Stan installed this gas fireplace last year. I fought it him about it for a few years. I like wood and woodsmoke and the snap crackle and pop of a real wood fire. But seasoned firewood is rare and expensive around here. You need a place to stack it and a strong back to carry it in. Our last few loads were green and burned like turnips in the grate. I got sick of cleaning out the fireplace and finally caved and he put it in last year. They are ceramic logs that sit in our grate, with a material that looks like ash underneath. The gas pilot is hidden under the logs. With a press of a remote, the fire wooshes up. It's as warm and bright as wood flames. The logs singe and are soon covered in a realistic soot. We've had people over for an evening and none of them knew it wasn't a wood fire until they realized we never added a log to it all night. It's become a hedonistic pleasure. I flick it on before work for ten minutes and drink my coffee beside it. I can still ight a fire even if we are about to go out for the evening. It's made our hearth the heart of the house. All week we've had wild winds and I've come home wrung out from trying to keep the car on the road. A glass of cabernet, a lighting of the candles and the woosh of the fire turning on are beautiful things to come home to.

I love home and layering my nest. Over the years and four houses later, the insatiable urge to buy and decorate has left me, replaced by more artistic urges. But still I browse through magazines for inspiration and like to spend Saturday afternoons rearranging the little bits and pieces of shiny stuff I've collected. As winter appraoches, I'm pulling out the pewter chargers my sister gave us as a wedding present. I've put away the margarita glasses in fiesta colors for next summer and replaced them in the cabinet with sapphire blue goblets my late aunt gave us ten years ago. Last month, my sister underwent a cleaning binge at her house and gave me the original sapphire blue, stemmed dessert dishes that were the inspiration for my aunt's purchase. The original ones were my grandmother's and she gave them to my sister when she got married. I envied them for years and my aunt found the new set in a catalogue and gave them to me one Christmas. The old ones are very fragile and have a little crystal in the middle of the stem and I've put them in the curved glass cabinet.

We used the newer ones a few weeks away when I made my first pot of beef stew for the fall. I invited over my sister and my mother. The table was set with my mother's old earthenware dishes that have blue bands. The tablecloth was a deep burgundy and the blue-stemmed goblets looked rich and jewel-like. I'd bought a collection of bumpy, warty gourds and squashes at the market and piled them into an impromptu centerpiece. My daughter was home from e and we were seven at the table. The beef stew was redolent of autumn with its peppery taste. Made from my mother's recipe, it was layered with memories of our house on Claire Avenue and the long dining room, the french country chairs, and the wide dining room table where my father and mother sat at either end and we five girls tethered the sides in an uneven line up.

I like impromput, quiet nights of entertaining. I am giving back to my mother little bright snapshots of our family together once again. I share with her and with my family the tastes and smells of my childhood. We sit surrounded by the city we all grew up in, a remarkable accomplishment after our years of living all over the country. The fall leaves rustle on the side porch and moon comes up over the living room windows. Our cheeks are flushed with the wine and the table is littered with the crumbs of Italian bread we use to mop up the last juices of the stew. The kids begin to talk of dessert and someone plugs in the coffee pot and the aroma resuscitates us enough to clear the table and lay out coffee cups and an apple pie. My husband patiently marks chestnuts with a slit and banters with my mother about her method of cross-hatching an "x" on the flat side of the chestnut. He claims they don't open well that way after they are roasted. Jessica announces she has to take a shower as she's going out at ten. Chris disappears upstairs to play go on the computer and Julia badgers my mother into a card game. Stan and I clear up and make eyes at each other because we are tired and no one is helping. Then he drives my Mom home and by the time he's back, I have the lights out and the fire glowing and the candles lit. We have glasses of Grand Marnier and sit on either ends of the couch. He rubs my feet and we flip on Saturday Night Live.

Such is the wild, romantic, rocking social life of forty-somethings. And thank God for it.

My memories ride the brush into the pot of paint and are dipped in alizarin crimson or pthallo green. Scenes, words, faces, and emotion emerge from the pot plump and juicy, like a well-stewed pear, rich and redolent, and carrying the perfume of artistry. The brush strokes are sweeping and wide, or tiny and delicate. The canvas is primed. Like a body waiting for a lover's caress, the canvas seems to quiver and arch up to meet the brush.

I am telling the stories that float through my memory like the organza sheers blowing in the summer breeze at my grandmother's windows. Blue sky and bright white curtains that catch the morning sun on shiny threads and send it crackling through the blue room like sparks. The day ahead is long and hot and for the moment I lie under the sheets that are still cool despite my body's nightlong embrace. The curtains sail into the room and the blue of the sky bleeds into the blue of the room and the curtains fly and the sheets are cool and the blue soaks into the very pores of my skin and impregnante me with desire.

On the dresser is a Bakelite clock that hums and ticks and whirrs and at night I dream it screams at me and I wake shaking but quiet and listen to the creaks of the house and the snoring above and below me and count the faded bouquets on the chenille coverlet until dawn. Somehow I sleep again and wake to the blue room at sail. From under my pillow I slide out my notebook: black and white marbled, saved from last year's spelling class, half the pages blank and waiting for me. I've stuck the pencil in the top of the post that is missing its finial. My finges are small enough to pry it out. Black marks track against the white page lined with blue. I plan the day: cereal, bike, jacks on the porch, ice cream, dinner. I don't write of the dream, the screaming clock, the spinning perfume bottles, my grandmother's calls. I'll have to go home if I can't sleep at night.

I lay back in bed and and watch the curtains billow white into the blue world. Underwater I am weightless, in the sky I can fly, in this bed I am a chrysalis. The marbled notebook rests against my chest and rides my breaths.

Welcome

A rare Sunday afternoon at home with no kids, relatives, appointments, shopping or cleaning to do. I am surrounded by books on writing, art, and creativity, a stack of CDs, shelves of fabric, papers, pens, inks, paints, stamps, ribbons, fibers, buttons, embellishments, and findings of all kind. I can do anything I want. But what to do? I sit at the computer with my back to it all, but I can hear the silent, accusatory voices of each supply: "I'm drying up, I'm fraying at the seams, my rubber is peeling, my brush es are hardening".

I've really have too many art supplies, and yet, I never have what I need. On the table in front of the window, is a wooden tray with cubbies holdings beads in tubes, brushes, threads of varying weights and in colors like lilac, persimmon, and variegated green. There's an old pill bottle filled with rhinestone buttons from my late aunt; a gallon size baggie full of beads on strings from my mother's old beaded flowers days; a fabric journal about the moon; 1/2 wide copper tape; a bottle of smelly sulphur stuff that will antique the copper tape; another box of old buttons; a giant baggie fully of brushes; an old rolling pin; gel medium (which is leaking into the bag); a muffin tin in which tiny beads are organized; a block of beeswax; and a collection of various Altoid tins that I intend to burn on the barbecue grill in order to get the paint off and turn into tiny pocket shrines. Next to all this is a wooden Clementine box filled with seven large bottles (I thought I was ordering pints!) of Goldens Fluid Acrylic Glaze in Rust, Bronze, Copper, Ultramarine, Pearlized White, Mustard Yellow, and Patina Green. In front of that is my sewing machine and iron; a half-finished artjournal with pages drying; and a roll of two-sided tape that my 11-year old always swipes to hang up posters on her walls. And that's just what is on the table under the window, not what's under the table, or on the wall shelves, or the big desk, the plastic drawer cart, the closet....well, you get the picture.

I imagine that one day, I'll use it all in a frenzied, feverish whirl of creativity in which I will pour every jar of paint, letter with each bottle of ink, stamp with every stamp and pad, apply hundreds of collage images onto ever piece of paper I've collected, and make the most fantastic, over-the-top, perfect, museum quality collage/artjournal /assemblage/painting/artist book of all time.

Or maybe I'll just sort through the whole mess this afternoon, neatly put it all away, and clear off my desk in time to go back to work on Monday. Or maybe I'll just take a nap.