"I'm gonna make a movie"

"and it makes sound, too. That's what's so cool about it."

(View of Bellingham Bay, islands and Lummi Indian Reservation from Taylor Street Dock)

Cleanup time / Home

This cool breezy misty morning, just before I suddenly found the energy to begin a task that I have not had the energy for, I finished listening to this:



I am in the midst of reading Matterhorn, a novel by Karl Marlantes, and wanted to know more about the writer.  It's worth listening to the entire interview.  For me, listening to the interview was a roller coaster ride. I've been moved by the book but in a different way.  It is moving me forward, step by step, from a very stuck place.  Curiously, the book was recommended by an artist friend I hadn't seen for a long long time.  We talked briefly in the grocery store.  She has made a living as an artist since the 1980s.  She hadn't known that Richard had died. I have isolated myself from local artist friends and have not painted much at all since the First Gulf War. She mentioned Matterhorn. Later that day, when I looked at the book in the local independent bookstore, I felt a sinking feeling and put the book back on the shelf.  Within a hour or so, I went back to the bookstore to buy the used hardback copy for $8.

In the process of preparing to scrub the porch I noticed that my first day lily of the year is blooming today.

When I came back inside, I could hear John Lennon singing in my mind:



However far we travel
Wherever we may roam
The center of the circle
Will always be our home, yeah, yeah
(John Lennon, lyrics from "Cleanup Time," 1980)

Oceanic climate / Patience

The photo above was taken from Marine Park on the south side of Bellingham on a cool and cloudy part of the first day of summer, near the Great Blue Heron rookery.

Walking by Bellingham Bay on the first day of summer

Leo DeLuca and Alex Doonesbury / ... sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself

May love bless and keep 
Leo and Alex
and all those of their
generation always.

They are dear to my heart.

Thanks to the artist, Garry Trudeau.

"Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday..."

(Kahlil Gibran)

Alex is 24.  I'm guessing that Leo is around 24, too.

 ... twenty-four and there's so much more ...

(I've got to say that this new version of Blogger is a challenge to use.  This took me nearly two hours to put together, and that is part of why I haven't been posting as often as before.  Just when I think I have it figured out, I realize I don't at all.  It seems to require that I know HTML.  It just occurred to me that it might not be compatible with my Mac, but it doesn't work any better on my PC.  I can't seem to get the spacing I want.  It is likely very good for this old dog to attempt to learn new tricks.  Perseverance furthers.)

Billie Holiday Meditation

You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave.

--  Billie Holiday (1915-1959)

"Woman with Blue Hair," a chalk pastel drawing by am from the early 1980s.

Thanks to Anu Garg for the inspiration.

You don't have to be able to draw a cat

"I teach kids they can use any color, any size paper, work any way they want to.  There are no boundaries, there are no rules ... they don't have to be able to draw a horse or a bicycle." 

 (Dale Chihuly)

"I have not worked at all ... Nothing seems worth putting down -- I seem to have nothing to say, but that is the way it is."

(Georgia O'Keeffe)

Oboe sleeping on my yoga blankets and just below Richard's watercolor painting of a sailboat

Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves ... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom.

-- William James, psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910) 

This is the most difficult time of year for me, just before the summer solstice.  The easiest things become difficult.  I try to focus on the part of me that is well no matter what.  Every year after the solstice, as the days begin to become shorter, my spirits begin to lift.  I am clearly out of sync with most people, but I know that I am not alone either.  

Oboe appears to be in good spirits every day, year in and year out. She is good company.