Kingfisher on Branch

Kingfisher on Branch / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68, including shipping

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I'VE OFTEN WISHED that I had just a little of the clean-house type of OCD that several of my friends have. Their homes are always sparkling. The downside is that messiness is a truly troubling stress for them, and one that takes a psychic and spiritual toll. But their houses always look great - and sometimes I think it would be worth the tradeoff. 

Recently, I've come to realize that in addition to being not talented at house-cleaning, and not really interested in it, I'm a little fascinated by the progression of dust and dog hair on surfaces in my house. 

There are places in the house where dog hair, particularly, collects. It must have something to do with the architecture of the house and the traffic patterns and the way the breeze comes through. I'm sure all of you with pets have places like this in your houses, spots where there is always, always dog hair. I sweep or vacuum or wipe with a paper towel, and 20 minutes later, dog hair. 

A friend gave me a pretty yellow chair with curved wooden legs, and I put it where Peter's couch used to stand, in the corner of the living room. The dog hair used to collect under his couch, but you couldn't see it, because the skirt of the couch cover came down to the floor. 

Now, there's only bare floor, and I find myself watching with fascination as the dog hair piles up beneath the chair, layer by layer. I left it for a couple weeks recently, just to see what would happen, and I ended up with a sort of pelt of hair beneath the yellow chair. It was wonderfully rewarding to clean it up! 

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A Last Thought

"Tides are like politics. They come and go with a great deal of fuss and noise, but inevitably they leave the beach just as they found it. On those few occasions when major change does occur, 

it is rarely good news." 

- Jack Mcdevitt

Kingfisher Looking Back

Kingfisher Looking Back / Oil on black canvas / 4x12 / $88 including shipping

this bird has flown!

A FRIEND IS AWAY on a cross-country RV trip, and told me I could pick any flowers or vegetables I found in her garden while she's gone. She is a wonderful gardener, and though other neighbors are regularly picking, she said there's plenty to go around. 

Another friend asked why my gardener friend would have planted so much, if she knew she was going to go away at harvest time, and I had to think about that question. 

We start planting here in late March or April, when the covid was just beginning to bloom. My gardener friend knew that she and her husband wanted to go away - it is a trip they've been planning forever - but they didn't know what would happen, in terms of the virus, travel, etc. And so, she planted.

Thinking about this, I realized - for about the millionth time - that none of us ever really knows what will happen. Not tomorrow, not today, not even in four hours. Most of the time, we live as if we do know - we count on it, too. But the truth is, we don't.

Of course, there is comfort in thinking that we know. Believing that we know. But maybe there is comfort, in a way, in not knowing. In doing the planting because it is time to plant. 

It is the comfort of the moment, this one, rich, round, life-filled moment, this now. 

Zinnias from my friend's garden.

***

A Last Thought

Song for Autumn

Don't you imagine the leaves dream now

how comfortable it will be to touch

the earth instead of the

nothingness of the air and the endless

freshets of wind? And don't you think

the trees, especially those with

mossy hollows, are beginning to look for

the birds that will come - six, a dozen - to sleep

inside their bodies? And don't you hear

the goldenrod whispering goodbye,

the everlasting being crowned with the first

tuffets of snow? The pond

stiffens and the white field over which

the fox runs so quickly brings out

its long blue shadows. The wind wags

its many tails. And in the evening

the piled firewood shifts a little

longing to be on its way. 

- Mary Oliver

Kingfisher

Kingfisher / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

This bird has flown to a new home! 

THESE DAYS, I HAVE FELT DULL, in the Victorian novel sense of the word. I am sure that part of it is the journey of recovery that I'm on, learning to live alone, without the input from my smart and interesting husband. Without the sparking of ideas shared and discussed, pulled apart and put back together. Without the bits of nagging and temper that sometimes punctuated our peaceful life. Without the rhythms and patterns of decades together.

But I am sure, also, that part of it is the covid, and how my world has shrunk because of it. I see people, I talk to people, I go places - but it is all limited, in part by my spiritual and emotional frailty and in part by the virus.

I am in awe of my friends who live alone and who have carved out meaningful, onward-moving lives without the constant input of a partner, and all the ripples that person brings to a surface that I am finding to be too often too still.

So I will seek some different experiences, go someplace if not new, at least some place I haven't visited in a while. I will try a new color of paint, read a new book, maybe strike up a conversation with a stranger. And I will wait with whatever patience I can muster, for things to change. 

***

For Today

"People don't take trips. Trips take people." 

- John Steinbeck

Kingfisher Looking Up

Kingfisher Looking Up / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

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THE HEAT SWALLOWS ME in one gulp, and in the next, sucks down the world around me. We churn in the stomach of this thing, digested by the torpor, by air so humid, it's like breathing water. Like breathing espresso. Like breathing the inside of my body. 

How can I drink coffee when it's this hot? I don't know, but I can - and I enjoy the tasty thought that my insides are now as warm as my outsides. 

***
For Today

"It's never too late to be who you might have been."

- George Elliott

Kingfisher

Kingfisher / Oil on black canvas / 4x12 / $88 including shipping

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AT LONG LAST, RAIN is falling here in Wachapreague. It is just a passing shower, but even so, it's something. Water. Moisture. Something to soften the crisp, brown grass in my yard. Hold down the dust. Wet the shriveling leaves of my hollyhocks. Give the farmers even a thought of something other than desperate disaster.

And so, I rejoice. Even if it is only a little rain, it is respite. It is a break. It is a relief. It's something different! And the birds are loving it. They are already bathing in a little puddle in the road. 

***

For Today

"Great art picks up where nature ends."

- Marc Chagall

Kingfisher on Branch

Kingfisher  on Branch / oil on black canvas / 5x7 unframed / $68

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IN PAST SUMMERS, we festooned our front dogwood tree with hummingbird feeders. There's one out there now, and there are circles of fishing line hanging from a few branches, ready for when I fill up the rest of the feeders. 

This morning, a little wren tried over and over to pluck what she thought was just a bit of fishing line. I'm sure she is in the process of building her nest, and apparently, the fishing line looked like ideal material. 

After three tries, she gave up. I'm sure she will find better stuff around in the yard - but I felt a little sorry for her, and a little guilty, to have unwittingly tricked her with the fishing line. 

***

Painting Workshop

ON SATURDAY, AT 1 P.M. EASTERN, I'll be giving another painting workshop, Live on my Carrie Jacobson Artist Facebook page  (https://www.facebook.com/carriejacobsonartist) . The workshops are free, you don't have to register, and they last about an hour. 

So, a little before 1 p.m. Eastern, put on your tie-dye and click on the page, then look for the Live thing to happen. I think it's easier to find if you follow or like the page first - it will probably show up in your notifications list. There's also an Event listing, and if you find that and click "Going," I'm pretty sure it will remind you. 

Get set up with whatever you like to paint with and whatever you like to paint on, and join in. It will be fun! 

Here's the photo we're going to use as the basis for our painting: 

***
Gratitude

TODAY, I AM grateful for the blossoming trees, and how they decorate my small world with their fragile, gentle beauty, and their lovely, tender colors. 

What are you grateful for today? Please use the comments below, or send me an email. 

***

For Today

"Strive not to be a success, but rather, to be of value."

- Albert Einstein

Kingfisher

Kingfisher / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

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WHEN PETER WAS ALIVE, he would make pizza usually about once a week. 

When I say "make," I mean that he would take frozen gluten-free pizza, usually Udi's, and doctor it up, adding a variety of items, depending on what we had in the icebox and what he felt like making. 

Usually, it was regular pizza-type pizza, with pepperoni or soupi or sausage added, but often it was more exotic. Pesto and garlic and artichokes. Cheeseburger pizza. Taco pizza. Bacon and ham pizza. 

It was always delicious and always wonderful, but the thing about it was that it always took him FOREVER, absolutely forever, to make these pizzas - often upwards of 90 minutes from start to finish. 

Honestly, I never knew what took him so long, and now, will never know. Few people outside of me were ever treated to these pizzas, but on the rare occasions when he invited people in, they and I would wait in the living room, not very patiently, rolling our eyes and laughing at him while great pizza smells drifted in from the kitchen. 

I bought a frozen pizza last week, and last night, doctored it up and cooked it. The whole process took about 20 minutes, 18 of which were the pizza cooking in the oven. It smelled good, and looked good, but it tasted like cardboard. Tasted like loss and sadness, nothing fun, nothing delicious. I had one slice and threw the rest of it away. 

I have another one in the freezer, and I thought of throwing it away, too, and maybe I will - but maybe I will keep it and try it again in six months or so, and see if I can conjure up the memory of my sweet, deliberate, careful husband and our delightful and delicious and inexplicably slow pizza nights. I'll let you know. 

***

Thought for Today

Fleas

Adam had'em. 

- Ogden Nash