180º

I really needed that break, I really did. This period of reflection has been absolutely necessary for me to survive because mentally I've not been doing well. I've been called a Square Peg more than once in my life, and through this time of reflection I've realized that once again that is the problem. I am undergoing a personal restructuring of my priorities and life and will be coming back to this blog very shortly with a renewed permission to view and enjoy and experience things as I see fit, with no requirement to address things in such a way that it asks me to be critical of everything I do or what humanity does at all times. That attitude is just crippling for me. Nope, I have felt a turn, taken a sip from a goblet of hope that will maybe give me just the permission I need to enjoy this life as I have it. I am not an ambassador, a 24/7 caregiver, or a grunt piece to enable someone else's dream to come true. I was raised with the belief that I am entitled to live my own dream while remaining true to my personal responsibilities.

More to come and soon, I'm glad to say.

Taking a break

I'm needing to step away from this public blogging thing for a bit. Meanwhile I'm working, caring for my family and home and reflecting on the necessity of an artist's voice in the massive sea of this civilization. How much of what we are driven to share as artists, is really just another iteration of a person's desire for fame and attention? Just thinking about these things. I've put my camera away for a while, my knives have been set aside for over a year now in woodblock printing, and I'm just reflecting about things on a personal level. I'm knitting, and thinking just, you know... thinking about things.

Well did anybody else cry?

I cried. Knit. Then donated a little money. If I can buy a luxury skein of yarn then why can't I help Obama. So I won't buy yarn but I'll hope for Obama because I want something good, something different for my kids not to mention the world, than what I've been witnessing the last 8 years. I have neighbors that voted for Bush twice. A brother. How it could happen frightens me deeply. I could not help them see, but maybe Obama can? Can they see hope and despair now? I just threw $25 toward hope. I'll work again tomorrow, then maybe do it again. I don't think I can bring myself to watch the Republican convention, and I know it was all preaching to the choir here in a way, but I watched it just the same. I haven't felt such hope in my lifetime as a voter. Maybe my $25 will fight the swift-boat dust storm creators and disarm them. I don't know. But I cried tonight for the Republicans who are choosing Obama this time. For the end of the tax relief for the wealthy and for the end of the empty concept of trickle-down. For the end of policy protecting the greedy who are draining everything our forefathers and mothers worked for to help make companies successful in the first place. For gay people needing assurances for a good life with the same protections the rest of us have the chance to get. For all the things he said. For my kids.

And I knit Dave's sock. The So Square sock.

s'up.

It gets this way sometimes. I have been busy with my job and learning a new skill for it, which is good but sometimes exhausting when I am pulled away. I saw my sister and helped her a bit with the state of her life by sorting, boxing, listing, donating. But meanwhile my hands and feet are going numb, as are my legs and arms but just a little, but the feet are hurting along with it and I'm trying not to freak out. No sense visiting the quack for the inevitable expensive shrug and scorn. It's hard to face our finiteness. And not that it helps matters but I've been watching Bill Moyer's Journal from time to time. That can be a downer but a reality check, just like driving to Portland is for me when I must maneuver through the traffic and at the gas station see hundreds of other humans like me with their vehicles sucking in the precious addiction substance called gasoline. I am really baffled by us humans. We just don't really fit with the rest of the life forms on this planet, do we.

When all else fails, knit.

So I did, and then I failed at that. Final effort I made, sock #4 trying to make a version of the "Sparrow" sock from Noro Joy, by Jane Ellison. I used the Noro Kureyon sock. I ended up with #0 needles, although the pattern calls for #2, to get gauge. I picked up 20 instead of the 22 stitches as written along the heel. And yet, and yet the pattern still does not work. There is too much fabric along the arch of the foot. I. HATE to give up but i. give. up. I hate to give up. Sorry Cherry Blossom. Sorry.

Wellness.

It's not like wellness is a static thing, a thing to purchase or a finite state to achieve. It's like happiness. It's there when it's there and you're glad for it and try not to freak out that it's going to leave you and you don't know when. Lately I have not been well though and I admit that it makes me mad (what a surprise). I've been coughing and wheezing for a few weeks now, wondering if I have asthma. I've been nailed with several disabling migraines despite my prevention medication and the Big Gun of Maxalt. Maybe it's the heat? Naw, it hasn't been that hot. Maybe it's the stress? Could be. The boys talk non-stop. Unless you've lived it, you cannot know. Then there are the trips to Portland. Not a big deal really, except for some reason they seem like they are to me. Yesterday I took my youngest along with me, stopped at Uwajimaya for a bite to eat & to purchase a nice bottle of つゆ but realized at the check-out counter I had completely forgotten my debit card & left it at home, next to the stove. Anywya, last night I smelled a weird industrial smell and awoke this morning with swollen sinuses and a migraine. By 4 this afternoon I felt well enough to leave the house and while driving away from our little street I could see that my next door neighbor, who has been sawing and pounding things on the weekends for a while, finished his deck railing. It's all painted and tidy, but *ding* that is what I smelled last night. The drying paint. Solvents and stuff like paint will for sure give me a headache.

So today after heading out for a necessary work-related errand, I stopped at the health food store in town with my boys in tow. I'm thinking short-term gains here. Like making tofu burgers or some vegetarian lasagne. Doesn't that sound good? It's so immediate. Nobody will look over my shoulder to inspect my work, there are no social ramifications surrounding the caliber of my workmanship because it will be a personal meal. How refreshing. A nice change from enduring the cryptic ways of humans, whose motivations can so often be confounded.

So lately I've been thinking about fame, about the usual existential crisis, about why people would go to their 30th high school reunion (mine is tonight and NO I am not going), and about how nice it is to simply make something without strings of desire for acknowledgment attached. You know, just a crazy thing for the yard. Maybe some tile on the front porch. Doesn't need publishing, no grand statement. In 200 years, we will all be so dead and gone, if there any humans left we will just be regarded as an "era" rather than any one individual gaining notoriety. Oh maybe Bush, but that kind of notoriety most of us would not want. Artists of long ago were statistically more significant because of the total human population. Most people that will effect us now are either politicians or scientists, maybe tech-gurus. IMHO.

early evening by the park 2

early evening by the park 1