i look to the right...

.


you fall asleep with your glasses on.

i turn off the movie you suggested.

i make a little film of myself dancing in the mirror:

black dress, swaying hips.

i send the film to jose because it's not out of the ordinary for him to be awake this late.

he sends me a film in return: 

girls dancing in short skirts and my art on his walls.



i should send him more.  what do i need all this art for? 



sometimes i wonder about who i am
vs.  what i was taught...



i think about that a lot lately.

maybe it has something to do with the time of year?  the slant of the sun?`  the yellow cast catches my eye- the way it drips from the leaves, the way it oozes through the blinds.  i think of home...  days when i'd come home from school to find my mother standing in the kitchen, days when i'd drag my body home so begrudgingly...  always feeling at odds, always feeling the pull toward something else, always unable to just get along...


i look at myself in the mirror and i can see that i'm older but i don't feel as old as i am.  really, i feel like i've just begun.  maybe i'm just a late bloomer?  i was simply getting ready all this time.  i was simply gathering wool.  i was only learning the vocabulary i'd need. 

.

i walked down shattuck ave in the late afternoon and it felt so much like the late afternoons i spent in my hometown.  i'll never hate oakland the way i hated redlands.  i could never hate oakland at all, it's just that i've been here too long.  i lust too hard after other sunrises.  i lust too hard after other winds echoing across other avenues.  i've drempt too hard for too long of far off places.  the residency sealed it.  i belong elsewhere.  i've known it for quite some time.  it feels good to have finally made the decision to click the BUY NOW button on a plane ticket and choose a new adventure.  i need to walk down streets i'm inspired by again.  i need to welcome the next phase.


i tried to throw away old art supplies today and couldn't do it.


there's so much to get rid of.

 i cleaned the toilet instead.

i want to give myself the gift of a fresh start but it is horrendously painful to part with certain things.  i'm leaving the contents of my bookcase until last.  it'll break my heart to have to part with certain books.  today, i looked at my copy of the collected novels of Jean Rhys and thought of Kate- those old days of writing back and forth to one another through email and the comment boxes of our blogs.  i read all of Jean Rhys' novels during the 8 days i had to wait before i could board my plane to tennessee to go watch my mother die.  then kate mailed me a copy of Roland Barthes' "Mourning Diary" after i returned home to california after the funeral.

i shouldn't have become so distant after all that (with everybody) but i honestly couldn't help it. 

i couldn't help it.

sometimes i still can't
but i'm glad to not need such a deep silence now. 


.


brian is curled up under my white quilt.

i love him and i'm glad he is here. 

tonight while we walked home from the bar, i looked at him and said, "hey, brian elder, you're my best friend!"

he looked at me and said, "oh yeah?  you're my best friend!"




i'm happy as fuck.  :)


.

the voodoo that you do so well

i am wiped out.  5 days in new york is a whirlwind experience.  especially when things like swizzels and pickle backs are involved.  good lord.  my liver must hate me...  but my diary sure loves me.  ;)  there are tons of things i will write about but i think they're better off confined to the nebulous curves of poetry and prose than a blog post.  at least for now. besides, i'm still trying to re-acclimate to being home.  this time around, i was actually ready to come back to oakland.  i wanted my own bed and my friends and my music.  i wanted more than two pairs of pants and two tshirts.   i wanted to sit for a minute and write.  i really have gotten to a place where if i go for more than a day or two without writing i begin to feel very anxious, very displaced.  i need the slip of ink to reel me back in to the Here and Now.  words hold me in place.  they hold me together.  it isn't enough to take pictures.  i need a deeper sort of record.  i need a place where i can roll around with my experiences.  i need the license of poetry, the lens of art and romance, the flex and freedom of language itself.  on my last night in new york i finally got to sit and write for a beautiful hour and a half inside a diner in the Bowery.  i had fish and chips and a pina colada for dinner but ordering food was really just a smoke screen for claiming a warm place to scribble.  it was so cold that night.  the air was frozen and it shot right through the front of my jeans to sting my thighs horribly.  i am not used to a little thing known as the wind-chill factor.  california doesn't have that shit.  not even close.  and that shit is real.  not just real, but really ridiculous.  it can basically make an otherwise pleasant evening feel like the 7th circle of hell.  several new yorkers laughed at me for my reaction to the cold.  apparently, it was warm there for this time of year.  hooooollllly moley!    it doesn't necessarily curb my desire to live there though, i'll just need a better wardrobe.  my leather jacket wasn't the best foil to such weather.  i was ill-prepared at best.  my return trip did work to cure me of my love-sickness for New York though and i am thankful for that.  i was so heart broken after coming home last time.  this time, i cruised the streets less frantically and with far less need to hunt down a reckoning.  i felt at ease this time.  i knew that i could come back and would come back.  i knew that it isn't as hard as people make it seem.  an inexplicable thing happened:  i ran in to a girl i went to art-school with in this tiny tiki bar called Otto's Shrunken Head in the Lower East Side.  she moved to Brooklyn a year ago and just so happened to shoot over to the city that night.  i walked in the bar and heard someone call my name and it wasn't my friend anne.  fucking wild!  she and i had studios right across the hall from each other in school!  small weird world!  and anne and i had just been stumbling around directionless in Brooklyn earlier than day!  we watched a musical tribute to Queen and drank pina coladas and ate voodoo chips at the bar.  in fact, it was these particular pina coladas that got me to order a pina colada at the diner in the Bowery.  i haven't had one in years but something about the chill in the air and being with a great friend in New York City and feeling completely at rest, completely free and festive made ordering such a drink make perfect sense.  as a child i used to always order virgin pina coladas whenever my family would go out to a restaurant for dinner.  it wasn't that often so the drink seemed so special to me.  it felt right to revisit that feeling in New York.

 pina coladas

 voodoo chips

drunken bathroom portrait photography

Die Frauen sind sehr lieblich.

i've been listening to this song for days and days...

Meine gute Freundin Freya schickt das Leid zu mir.  Ich liebe das so veil.  Mein Hertz brecht.  Wenn ich das Leid hore, schuttet meinen Hertz das Traurigkeit aus.

i feel so thankful for her friendship.  when she sent it to me, i felt seen...  the hidden parts of me, known.  my eyes and heart tremble.  i feel full of both longing and hope.  i pull my sweater over my head and walk in the cold.  the dark of these streets become such a comfort.  i look at the lonely lights hanging high above my head and the fast flash of cars speeding by.  i wish for so many unnameable things...

unnameable only because i don't yet have the courage to bang out the letters on a public stage.  the names are well known in the pages of my diary and in the ears of friends.

i wore the black dress to the art opening and had an amazing time.  my sweet san francisco girls came and hugged me and i felt so honored.  i haven't seen their sweet faces in over 7 months.  i've been off building this little life of mine and they've been entirely patient, entirely supportive.  i have a bad habit of cloistering myself and going silent when there's work that needs to be done.  i burrow down in to the task at hand and i hold my breath and go go go.  but i feel they must know my heart.  they must know i was busy with the strange work of repairing my Self and my ability to fight and to believe in the existence of something better than what i've had.  a better life grows ever greener and bolder these days and i hope they know how integral they have been to the birth of my independence.  if not for your belief in me, friends, i could've have pulled the trigger.

and so i hugged everyone as much as i could and laughed and smiled and caught up on as much as we could in the short time we had.  my skulls stared down from the tall white walls and kept safe watch over our exploits.  i didn't realize how short my dress was until my friend monika put a few pictures on facebook.  i'm pretty sure that when i wrapped my arms around the necks of friends i inadvertently flashed my ass at whomever was standing behind me.  you're welcome.  :)

 the show is up for a month so make a plan to go see it.  you'll love everything you see.  especially the treasures in kate's cases. GO.

always

church goers

me and my friend becca call going to the museum "going to church". our faith blossoms. our strength is restored. we leave feeling so much lighter than when we came in. affirmed. dedicated. courageous. committed.

we also have a fun little habit of turning any art piece that incorporates a mirror into an opportunity to make self-portraits. the MOCA was rife with said opportunity. :)




me




my beautiful friend and amazing artist, rebecca schillinger




mirrors




becca smiling. so pretty!!!




silly girls.




more silly girls.




homeboy in the back taking pictures of us taking pictures of ourselves. hmmmm.




yours truly. :)




plan a museum trip with a friend.

yesterday at 5:29pm

.



me and my beautiful friend, Becca Schillinger, in Tobias Wong's mirror/clock.


rest in peace, sweet boy.


.

tomorrow night we get the keys

i stumble across collections of words, phrases, and fall in to them like a tar pit, screaming THAT'S WHAT I WAS TRYING TO SAY! and loving the feeling of being stuck (so crazily, inexplicably comfortably stuck!) in someone else's writing.

i have been thinking about (fearing) homelessness for months as we searched and searched fruitlessly for new digs, always coming up empty handed, making phone calls that were never returned, making appointments that the other person always forgot, running face first in to rules that i could not wrap around my life, could not endure the strangulation, could not abide by just to end up being stuck in place i wasn't all that happy about being anyway. we began planning to put all our boxed possessions in storage and living in cars, surfing couches, buying a gym membership just to be able to take showers. i'm serious. and i thought of Genet and i thought i have no real home anyway and i thought no, wait, my real home is my notebook, my real home is this Blackland, these images i create.

these thoughts have been present and potent. they originated when my mom leaned in to death and the threat of homelessness surfaced the moment i returned home from her funeral. too much at once. and it has been too-much-at-once for months now. it was so impossibly hard to find a new apartment in santa rosa that i really did start thinking maybe God doesn't want me to live in the north bay? the fates really have seemed pretty opposed to the idea. and so we start looking in our beloved east bay again, in good ol' Oakland, and the very first place we submit an application to becomes ours. we pick up the keys tomorrow evening. we will load our boxes of books in to the truck tonight.

the reception at Project One last night was beautiful and felt like a homecoming, like a longing satisfied, like a return. art on the walls, my Worry Roses for my mom installed, friends all around, happy to hear that we are moving back after three long years out here in the countryside. three years... it doesn't seem real. it doesn't seem possible that it's been that long. a long, strange dream... not a Home.

and i needed the connection. i needed the tall white walls and people milling around with wine glasses in their hand. i needed the air, the space, the breath of these things.

i'm reading Just Kids by patti smith right now and it's the most perfect thing i could be reading. my friends freya and doug read it, one right after the other, a week or so ago and lent it to me the second they finished reading it. it's the perfect follow-up to volume 2 of anais nin's diary and the perfect preface to our move back to oakland. my fear about homelessness lifted instantly and i thought well, patti smith slept on a stoop in new york... i could sleep in my car in san francisco. what's the big deal? and then of course, the very next day, we get an apartment. God approved. hahaha!

the week i didn't write here i was dealing with all these things and a long-time friend of the family who has known me since i was about 7 years old or so that we lost track of a few years back tracked me down on facebook. still thinking of us as family, still thinking of my mother as her best friend, still thinking of my mother as her sister, she sent me an excited message asking about my mom and how to get a hold of her, she called me mija just like always, and then in her happy hunt for connection she stumbled across my blog. she read, here, about my mother's death. her best friend, her sister. and another message was sent. she left her phone number and i called her the second i got in the door from work. hearing her stunned horror was painful. hearing her voice, a voice i've heard all my life since i was just a little girl, felt like Home. she looked at my work online and felt proud of me.

and a few days ago i read this post at repat blues' blog.

"There is no such thing as home. Home becomes art, the creation of art. Turning to art, working the wound. Stew's play. Passing Strange. I've always been passing strange. I'd rather be bad at this (writing, acting, fucking) than good at X (Selling air conditioners. Public relations. Saying Good Morning. Making eye contact)."

these are the words that i am happily stuck in. all of it. each word, a bell ringing. a knock on the head reminding me of what i must do. i got out of class yesterday (my last day of instruction before two rounds of finals next week) and immediately got in the truck and got on the freeway and went to san francisco. i left this life behind and picked up another 70 miles away in a beautiful room in a beautiful city. i hugged friends and i met strangers and i had champagne.

freya brought me roses and her children painted me a little picture of a rainbow which will go on the refrigerator in our new kitchen tomorrow evening. i turned in my almost-two-week notice at my retail gig and will be back on a crazy, meandering job-hunt in no time. i think of Genet and patti smith and repat blues and my friends. i think of the struggle and i think it's so completely fucking worth it when i think of what an artist's life is. if it ever comes down to it, the roof of a car is still a roof and i can totally live there because my Home is in my notebook and the graphite on the page, the paintings on the wall, and the words that women write.

the apartment hunt is finally over and so many hopeful things have arrived

.










































.

i am something that i cannot describe. my heart is Chicken Little.

es regnet.

der himmel ist grau und ich bin sehr traurig.




my phone rang last night at 8:30 and the screen of my cell-phone had my step-father's name lit across it. i thought of the time difference between california and tennessee. i answered the call. my voice went small. i've recently stumbled in to a string of bad days. i hit the 2 month mark of life without my mother a few days ago. the 12th. and viewing shitty apartments drenched in cat piss has not been much of a help.

he asked how i was doing and i said "okay" just like a little kid. so small, voice quavering. "you don't sound like you're okay" he said and that's all it took to break my ridiculous dam. FLOOD WATERS OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS. i cried and yelled and hit the wall. these actions are completely out of character for me but having a dead mother is pretty out of character for me too so...

i cried hard and woke today with swollen eyes, feeling slightly embarrassed about having exposed the particulars, the details, the swing and shift of my life that boggles my mind sometimes... everything is so up in the air. i have no clue what to do. i have no idea what i'm doing. when i said "i just don't know what i'm doing anymore", he said "yes you do. yes you do." and when it comes to this, this pounding out of words, this creation of images, this land where i writhe in the grass, not roll - writhe! - yes, i know what i am doing... it is everything else that is such a huge and horrible question mark. such a looming fearful confusion. it's normal, the data says. the stages of grief and all that. but in a way, it is so much more. i am mourning so many things at once.

this morning, i ignored my alarm clock and finally woke up at 11am. as soon as i saw the time, i thought "yep... i'm depressed."

of course i am. i think that makes me absolutely normal.



kate zambreno let loose a small portion of her work book of mutter on her blog this morning. what a gift to receive after a night like last night. i needed to feel this kind of connection and the permission it extends.

i have spent the majority of my life feeling so alone but nothing like this. the depth of this aloneness is astounding. it shocks even me. i was once a baby. i was once inside her body, growing there, warm, safe, in the right place. that was a long time ago. it's been a very long time since i have felt those things and i feel so far from the possibility of feeling those things again. but i know they exist and that i must somehow manage to be tough, to be practical, to put one foot in front of the other and make the hard calls, the uncomfortable choices.

i've missed one day of school this semester. one day. not bad. and i haven't missed a day of work other than going to say good-bye and be present for the funeral. i have not called off. i have not spent an entire day in bed. i've stayed committed to exercise and am still a non-smoker. it's been 5 months now since i quit. i am not in a dangerous place, i'm just on the horrible roller coaster, i guess.

reading kate's excerpt lets me know that i am not as alone as i feel. not nearly. this strange club we find ourselves in... girls and women without mothers. writers and artists without mothers. children who lost their mother way too early. it is a strange club indeed but i'm glad it exists. this lineage we build, the lines we draw back and forth to one another, the words that make the bridge, the words that burn the bridge, the words that re-make (re-mark) the Self, the words that define a person and a family and a world... we make a new site for ourselves in text. we find each other there. here. in paragraphs and pages and diaries and novels and even computer screens.

i am absolutely grateful for this. i am so grateful to have a place to be. writing/art has saved my life so many times. so so so many times. it will not fail me this time either. it is my mode. it is how i live.

kate writes, "i cannot mute my violence." this is a pain beyond compare and the fuel that moves the pen.

i dream lately of becoming a creature akin to jean genet. i dream of getting rid of all my possessions save for books and notebooks and art. i dream of moving in to my car and being a haphazard vagabond. i go to class and i learn a new language and the rest of the hours of the day feel like half-truths. on campus and in my notebook are the only places i feel like i am being myself.

chicken little...

the sky is falling.

yes it did.

yes it is.

yes it is.

yes it is.

also:

at the opening of our last show, lea said to me "your work is so devotional". she meant it as a very high compliment. this made me feel understood in a way that was unexpected. even to me. i didn't know i needed to be understood in that context until i was. at dinner the other night, she held my hand and kissed my face. it was such a wonderful moment of connection. later, i asked my sweetheart if he got a kiss from lea too and he said "yes. she's absolutely wonderful!"

dang!

.


all is right in the world today:

waking to a letter of appreciation and love of one of my paintings that made me get all misty-eyed and overwhelmed with gladness, then a gift at the door from a friend of mine way off on the other side of the country. he even stuffed one of his favorite t-shirts in the box which i am happily wearing right this minute because it smells like him and i love him. i haven't seen him in the flesh almost 8 years and that makes my heart hurt like a motherfucker. but today we promised each other we'd run away like little girls together one day. ha! holding hands and whispering secrets in each others ears and wearing matching converse high tops. i sure do love you, jose. <3 and i miss you like crazy.

how did i get so lucky all of a sudden? what lost star finally found its way home to my orbit? i am left breathless and smiling.



((((BIG HUG))))

"we are already ghosts"

her last post, very much a memento mori, bring shivers and shakes and that familiar, sad pull of helplessness. the hum in the back of your throat, the unanswerable why? i found out from rebecca yesterday that poet cami park has died. the news made my hands shake. i valued her and her work and her presence her in blogland. she and i had corresponded a few times and i sent her one of my prints and she had blogged about my work... i really, truly, deeply liked her. i wanted to know her better...

rebecca wrote a shivering post about cami's death. and then this morning, another post reminding us that the connections we make here in this strange world of text and light are just as real as the connections we make in the physical realm. maybe even more real, more true sometimes.

all these reminders recently of mortality, the shortness of time, the quickness, the rush, the spin. and illness. the tragedies that find us all, unbeckoned and unapologetic. my heart tears to pieces for her daughter. for her friends and family. for anyone who knew her and respected her. this, as winter rolls in. colder now because of her loss.

time is short. too short not to make as much art as you can and as many poems as you can and to fling these loves and fears and questions in to the world. too short to give too much of a fuck what others might say. do your best and GO.

i carry the sweet girl's name and words with me today, tonight, and on and on.

:)

ahhhhhhh. the long weekend is behind us (and what a beautiful weekend it was), and a short week is ahead of us. and good thing- i am worrrrrn out! on friday, 2 very close friends of mine from back home showed up on my doorstep! SURPRISE!!!! ahahahahah! and it was the most wonderful birthday surprise ever. we stayed up late, drank a ton of chai tea, and laughed our heads off for two days. absolutely wonderful!

i miss living in the same town as they do - it's 500 miles between their front door and mine - and having them here in my home was such a big gift. they went around my small home and looked at all the art (it's jam packed in here these days), and ohhhed and ahhhhed at all the work, pointed out their favorites, and told me what the images conjured up for them. i love hearing that kind of stuff- how a piece activates someone else's memory and experience. and we talked a lot about moving in to the 30s: how everyone i know tells me that it is a wonderful decade of living. especially for women. a time when we really start coming in to our own and develop a deep sense of self-assurance, resolve, and fire. a time when life really starts taking off. and i've been sensing that that's the case for at least a year now- becoming more bold, more brave, more secure in my own ideas and desires and needs.

when they left on sunday, i got teary eyed for sure. i miss those days when i could just call them up and ask what they were doing after work, pop on by, and stay up late giggling. friends are a beautiful thing. and GOOD friends are gorgeous and stunning and priceless. i made sure they left with a piece of art to love. truly: it's the least i can do for these two. :)

and now here we are at tuesday. i'm planning an fairly easy week for myself. the BIG 3.5 mile RUN every day for the next 4 days, lots of reading, and lots of drawing in bed. that's it. and maybe doing a few dishes every now and then. i've been working on a secret series of drawings for the passed few weeks and i finally hit the half-way mark last week. i want to pick up a bit more steam and get the project finished up as quickly as possible because it is giving rise to a ton of great ideas.

lately, i've been feeling the need to work very fast, not get hung up by perfectionism at all. just do my best, take what i've learned, and keep moving. when i am snared in a whirlpool of ideas is when i feel the most alive. the happiest and warmest.

here i am

hello! good morning! i missed you! :)

i missed the click of the keys below my fingers and this time in the morning to ramble on and on. but it was wonderful to have a friend here. especially daniela. we've been friends since we were 14. we met walking home from school one day and have been close ever since. she brought pictures taken when we were ditching school one day, trying on the clothes in the Scottish Shop. hahaha! kilts and jackets and hats! hilarious! and, though we look the same to each other, we look like total babies in the photographs. and the entire time she was here we laughed hard! just picked right back up from where we left off like not a day had passed since the last time we saw each other. we also had a lot of heart-to-hearts too. though our circumstances are different, we are in the same place of transition- realizing our own adulthood, considering ethics and values and trying to choose a path through life rather than having the path choose us. that stage. that scary, daunting stage full of uncertainty and anxiety. the fear. and so fate brings us together just at the right time when we can talk and explore and wrestle together for a week- laugh at ourselves and help each other along. having my longest friend here in my home all to myself was so encouraging and just plain joyful.

and now- coffee and the early fog and scribbling in my notebook. the meandering of my morning routine. the chill and the quiet. i wrote for a solid 2 hours this morning. my path becoming clearer and clearer. integrity as necessity. ethics as a MUST. courage. courage. courage. and, as elisabeth relayed, "the continual TRY".

all of a sudden, so many people bought work down at the gallery. THANK YOU! i can't even tell you what security you have provided! what encouragement and faith! and right in time! just what i needed, just what i was craving! the grand NUDGE to keep moving forward. ((((HUGE HUG)))) you lend me such bravery.

as my pencil scratches, i become more and more self-assured, more rooted in the relevance of the work, the necessity of my practice. i begin to feel like Kusama- that my work is "art medicine". i need it. i cherish it. i believe in it. i will follow it wherever it leads.

and last week, we just played. i started crocheting a new banner and painted some more little alices that need to be adorned with glitter and stamped out some hearts to be cut out and hung on the wall. :) fun and healing and playful. that stuff is so necessary within my practice- doing something light-hearted gives me strength to continue exploring Loss and what it means, how it effects us, and what benefits it can provide... that ruined landscape is also the site where hope springs... and how to locate that hope, that flowering, that incentive to continue. the grand NUDGE again and again. HOPE as a call to brave, compassionate action.

i'm happy to be back inside the Blackland. happy to ramble on and wrestle. i didn't get on the computer at all really while daniela was here. there's a lot to read and write back about, a lot to catch up on, a lot of research to continue, a lot to learn. but it was wonderful to have a little vacation here at home. i am recharged and resolved and reassured, and i'm very happy to see you! good morning! :)

real quick...

earl grey tea with cream. william kentridge exhibit last night in the city. art day today. laughter laughter laughter! warmth of every and all varieties. non-stop giggling. happiness and feeling totally at home. :)

good friends make the world go round, for sure.


(i'm having too much fun- total joy! i will resume our regularly scheduled program on monday. until then, have fun and hug your friends. )

YAY!!!!!!

my house SPARKLES! i don't think it's ever been this clean and well organized! i even washed the walls! hahahaha! i pick my friend up today at 2 and i am so happy and excited to see her. we haven't seen each other in 2 years! and last night i stayed up late crocheting, too excited to sleep. one of my goals in life is to make myself a blanket. i've attempted it a whole bunch of times and have had no success. none. i finished an afghan once but when i finished it and held it up in front of me it wasn't even close to being square. it was totally triangulated and horrible. i still have it as a time-capsule type thing but i want to try it again. i've been working on it, here and there, for months and made some major headway last night while i was over-run with excitement... in spite of my aching back after a full day of frenzied scouring. :)


my friend is an artist too and we'll have an entire week of drawing and laughing and making funky little things. i can't wait to hear what she thinks of the new drawings and paintings and i can't wait to see what we'll create while she's here. on her last visit we worked on the same canvas together. made a swirling, fantastic painting that encompassed both our outlooks and styles. HAPPINESS!

my posts will probably be pretty sporadic this week but know that i am having a wonderful time and lots of laughter. i wish the same for you. :)

thank you, my sweet friend

got this from my wonderful friend becca today. and it makes a great big wonderful difference.

WARNING: BIG TIME SENTIMENTALIT-TEE-HEE!

dog sleeping, sky beginning to pale, me and my coffee alone together in the quiet. these mornings are a luxury. i won't always have such freedoms. but for now, i can work to enjoy them and appreciate them as much as i possibly can, to use them with honor and diligence and wide-open gratitude... to pay attention to the sweet nudges i receive, the support and encouragement that come my way to reassure me that i've done even a small amount of good.

yesterday i shipped a drawing to a woman who buys art instead of toys for her two boys. 2 and 4 and already endowed with definite tastes! ha! and i can't tell you how much love spilled in to my heart when i learned of this sweet family. so much love it is still spilling out, overflowing in to the rest of the day, the sphere, the small walls that contain my life. art and stockings. that's the christmas tradition. and her children are on fire with excitement and happiness for these things. these beautiful and heart-felt things. what an awesome wonder. what a gentle reminder than art matters and flourishes and that there are people who know its value, who except beauty in to their lives, who bring it home with them and cherish it and allow it to work its magic. and the last Lineage canvas at the gallery is gone. off to a new and good home. and every now and then i get to hear the stories why people buy the art they buy and most of the time it has nothing to do with whether or not it matches the couch. i am touched and humbled and full of appreciation. a woman whom i've never met took a painting home with her because it touched her heart, it "represents the under-represented" and hit very close to home, and i can't tell you how i cried to know that someone got it, saw it, knew it! that someone feels the same way, sees the same need in the world, cares for them and knows that struggle. oh, i am overflowing! i am shaken. to the red center of my heart, i shake! blessings coming in from all sides these days! everywhere! everything!

and my conversation with rebecca, full of laughter and giggling and genuine love for art and knowledge and words and connection. such an amazing gift! an amazing friend! an amazing woman who cajoles words in to music, makes them dance and cry and quake. and my heart quakes along with them. shuddering and trembling and becoming devout. poetry. and through her, her work, her generosity of spirit, her unwavering belief in the importance of words, of art, i get better. i learn and become more sensitive, more courageous, more in tune. what a gift! what a pleasure! what an undeserved, unearned miracle.

and with this comes along a little network of amazing writers. good people who are kind and humble and hard-working. good writers who spill their hearts and the pools they leave for me to fall in to are gorgeous and heart-breaking. i am, day by day, amazing by the connections that have come about by simply maintaining this blog. the unique, beautiful web of people and art that is being spun, that is growing, that gets deeper each day, more and more solid, more and more stunning, more and more important and lovely. blessings coming in from all sides, indeed!

and another rebecca got married. got a solo show. got a whole new adventure for herself lined up. i'm heading out to the city today for a slumber party/ painting session. talking and talking and talking the whole time, we two funny shut-ins. ha! and maybe we'll leave the house for a minute for food but maybe not. we'll rest in our friendship and silliness and enjoy this day together and all the wonderful moments it contains. in school, i'd always lug my paintings over to her studio so we could work together. we'll make our own little deja vu, our own cute little flash-back, blast to the past.

this year is ending on such a high note. so high, in fact, it makes me appreciate the trials that preceded it. the silver-lining is sparkling so brightly it's impossible not to gaze at it. it's impossible not to stare in to the bright core of it til my eyes well up and all i see is the tremendous wealth of things i have to be endlessly grateful for and entirely surprised by.

ahhhhhhhh...

i can't even say much about it other than i am currently rolling around in the ecstatic warmth of entirely unexpected kindnesses and joys like a dog in the grass. rolling rolling rolling with my tongue lolling out, enjoying every second, every blade of happiness. and it shakes loose a huge tremble of gratitude. a sweeping surge that has lent me eyes to see and ears to hear and i am as wide open as a hungry baby bird, excited for everything and sucking in the cold, crisp air and the massive beauty that tumbles down, free and unrestricted, without fear or doubt. friendship and love and appreciation and art and all the gentle gentle things than creep up softly. rolling rolling rolling like a dog in the grass and i'll go on this way for as long as i can hold on to it. this weekend was the most amazing little two-day stretch i've had in years. oh, life is gorgeous sometimes.

HEY ALANNA!

remember that night up at mary's house, all drunk and dumb and fun and me and tom and kara ganged up on you to tell you how beautiful you are? remember? :) something in me suddenly crashed around just now and i thought that today, as the wind and rain pour in to portland, that it may in fact be a day where a reminder of that night would be nice. or maybe just a sentimentality in me to let you know that i remember it and that it holds true today, right now, this very second. absolutely beautiful, dear friend. absolutely. so here it is- a very public reminder. ha! i miss you dear friend and am so glad for your happiness.

love
angela