little satisfactions

The days grow longer already.  Perhaps more noticeable in the places I inhabit....Texas and California.  It's nice not to be driving in the dark at 5pm.  Little satisfactions.  The structure of bare trees made visible by the season; the low slant of afternoon light like a spotlight on humble things giving them life; people taking turns at a non working signal;  smiles from strangers; falling asleep with a book on my lap.

I promise I'm not about to break out into song....but it's good to not be rushing around so much and take in the view, the moment, the breath ....right now.

Peace.

soothing still life

New Starts.  Painted over a partly done canvas and did a large still life.....something I could control, to bring in the new year.  Combining the hills of California and some objects in the studio.  Objects I've painted for many years.  Old friends.  Objects standing in for people.  An avoidance of emotion.  A way to deal with the death of a friend, the end of a year, the prospect of more drought, the calendar turning pages faster than I can count.

Painting soothes the soul, erases the worry, allows my mind to wander in small jerks forward and backward without edit.

More still life for a while I think.

Peace.











 

time

December.  Houston.  Cool, cold even.  The difficult summer forgotten.  We seem to dwell only in the present where we are ok, or not ok.  I find myself thinking forward when in uncomfortable moments: "in one hour, I will be home (or through, or out of the airplane, or done with the dentist, or off the freeway) and 'this' will be over".  I helps. 
I am now of the age where in my mind I can travel long distances through time.  Can even get a bit lost there in the loops and small passages.  Some to savor, some to spit out, and some....to put in trunk, in the basement and slam the lid shut.
But, it seems, we must live in the present moment and make it count by being aware of it.  Tick tick.  It slips away.


Peace.

heaps of good food

I am here in Palo Alto, home of  Stanford who just ended their 11 game winning streak to Oregon...not that I usually know anything about football, but it was hard to ignore all the RV's and tail gating cars and trucks with people clad in either red and white or green and white.

No, I am attending my mother's Endgame...although she's no where near that, really.   I can no longer take her out to lunch or on long drives as there is too much discomfort for her in the car.  So I now bring her tasty morsels  to alleviate the boredom of bland assisted living food.  Heaped on her plate are:
figs; kiwi berries; blueberries; strawberries; sliced kiwi; sliced apple; a lady apple; stone wheat crackers; cheese polenta (if it's not turkey or chicken salad); fig cookies; and to drink, S. Pellegrino.  She loves it...the taste, and the vision of all that color.

And the color here in Palo Alto is weeks ahead of  Houston....so the trees are glorious.  And although it is quite nice here and my mother is doing well, I can't wait to get home again to He Who Snores, but I love him anyway.


Peace.

standing proud

My, my, my.  What a lot of time we have to mull over what we post in haste.  I'm so over my out burst about the bumpy ride through my household relationship with the person who snores.  It was only a day or so before said fine person was willing and able to perform household duties and heroics.  He is, in fact, redeemed.

I don't regret my fuming, as it led to greater things.  We need to protest on occasion.  Be it on Wall Street, in Oakland, or at the local tax board.  We need to have our say and not get run over by bigger folks.   I think of the original tea party, the one that actually threw tea over the edge of the boat, and I think of the Vietnam war, and perhaps most poignantly, the protests for Civil Rights.  People, regular people, stood up and were counted, and change was made to happen.

Peace out, y'all.

snoring irritating men

This has nothing to do with painting, except that it has been one of my subjects for the last 35 years. 

The painful subject is relationships.  Two adults living together and creeping up on each other's last nerve. I mean, come on, I almost never complain here.  But:

The toilet runs and has to be babied in order to work.

The sidewalk and walkway to the house have been uprooted by the oak tree and will cause someone to sue us for millions of dollars when they trip and die!

The house has not been painted for decades and the roof is surely due to fall in.

And the other person in this house SNORES LIKE A FREIGHT TRAIN.

I have painted some funny, some poignant, some soulful, some outrageous, some angry relationship paintings for years and years.  Now you know it's based in life.  Arggh.  And most of us live it.

Oh, yeah,  and Peace.

the quiet place

A little cooler now in Texas.  Had a chance to see some of the scorched land left by the wildfires here lately.  But ....although many sad and horrific things are on my television, alerts on facebook, in the newspaper, I choose not to paint from there right now.  I am painting from an interior place and hope that it communicates the quiet sadness, the quiet optimism, the joy of books and memories and those things that are from the personal two square feet that I inhabit.

Peace.