Roadrunner Redux

Roadrunner Redux / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

sold! 

AS I SIT HERE at the kitchen table Sunday evening, the wind is blowing in hard from the ocean. I feel like it's blown last week away - and honestly, I'm glad. 

The six-month anniversary of Peter's death was Friday. That was his formal death. His death-certificate death. I've come to understand that he died, truly, in the ambulance. In our road. Long before he got to the hospital and was hooked up to the drugs and machines that kept him alive into another day. Another awful, sad, day. A day that should never have happened to him. 

John Prine's death dragged me over the edge last week. Prine more or less provided the background music to our marriage. Not that we played his stuff constantly, but it was always there. A basted stitch, not a solid seam. We saw him at the Newport Folk Festival. We learned some of his songs on the guitar and played them together. And we sang along and marveled at his humor and genius and simplicity. 

I do believe in God and in Heaven, and I do believe that Peter is there, and John Prine is, too, and that, with any luck, they are playing together. 

So it is OK that I don't remember last week too well. That the wind blew it away. This is a new week, and I will put one foot ahead of the other. I will make the bed, empty the dishwasher, walk the dogs, paint some birds, and remember. 

***

Gratitude

I AM GRATEFUL to have made it six months without the man I love, and made it more or less intact. Cracked, changed, marred but not broken - or at least not past repair. 

What are you grateful for? One faithful friend and reader sent me a list of 10 things she is grateful for. You can put your gratitudes in the comment area below, or email them to me. Or just remind yourself that you have things in your life to be grateful for. 

***

For Today

"Art is our memory of love. The most an artist can do through their work is say, let me show you what I have seen, what I have loved, and perhaps you will see it and love it, too." 

- Annie Bevan

Another Runner

Another Runner / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / unframed / $68 including shipping

THE TUBAC SHOW starts on Wednesday, and while I am showing my art during the show, I am not actually IN it. I will be on the patio of Sweet Poppy, a lovely and very fun shop that sells some art, including mine. Marsha, who owns the store, invited me to set up there when she heard about Peter's death. She thought it would be easier, and different, and that I'd still sell well. 

We will see about the third part - it is always a gamble, no matter where you are - but the first two already are true. 

I was surprised, however, at how sad I felt when I saw the big banner for the show and realized I wouldn't be in it, in the hubbub, the chaos, the bright and loud and crowded community of artists that is any show. Even now, writing this, it makes me a little sad. 

But this is my year to try new things, to simplify - and, I guess, to be sad - or at least to feel, and feel deeply. At least from time to time. 

***

For Today

"Art is like therapy; what comes up is what comes up. It may be dark, but that's what comes up. You may want to keep some of it in a drawer... but never judge it." 

- Nick Bantock

Roadrunner

Roadrunner / oil on canvas / 5x7 / unframed / $68, including shipping

AS I WRITE THIS, I am halfway through Texas. I've watched the landscape go from the flat, open plains of the Eastern Shore to the winter-scrubbed mountains of Tennessee, to rain-swollen, mud-filled rivers and bayous in Mississippi and Louisiana, to the still-green hills of eastern Texas. Today, I will find myself in dry, brown mountains and then flat, open plains, making some sort of a full circle before I see the mountains of New Mexico and the red soil of Arizona.

Two days ago, I found myself looking at a ramshackle, junk-strewn, chicken-filled yard of a trailer in a think forest near a stream in Mississippi, and wondering what life was like there, what it felt like to live in that trailer, eat eggs from those chickens, watch your dog drag mud into your house every day from that creek - and I realized that this is why I needed this trip so desperately. 

I needed to wonder, to think, to look outside myself. I needed this trip to wrench my focus off my own life, my own loss, my own circumstances. I needed to force myself to look beyond my own needs, and see something different, something new, something other than my world. 

***

For Today

Born Again

You can't trust oblivion.

In the Serious Mountains,

a hidden lake, utterly still

is swept suddenly by rain. 

Crow hops out of no crow

and eats the diamond -

countless births, countless deaths.

Sky brims over with sky,

Wind harrows the grasses,

River narrows and quickens,

stronger than the strongest swimmer.

It's only March, and already

the pear blossoms are falling.

Just remember this -

you weren't the one 

who wanted a separate being.

You are the frail wing, rescuing love

from love's faceless mirror. 

- Michael Hannon

From "A Bird Black as the Sun"

Roadrunner

Roadrunner / Oil on black canvas, unframed, $68 including shipping

sold

WHEN I WAS a kid, and through until today, the roadrunner cartoons were always among my favorites. On one trip out west, I saw an Acme brick company. Wish I could remember where that was.

At any rate, I laughed out loud when I saw a real roadrunner for the first time. They really DO run.

***

For Today

Roadrunner

By Angelina Sarsficio

Roadrunner, roadrunner

Where are you running to?

Fast you are, but I've seen you.

What did you do? That's why you're looking around.

Are you looking for me?

. . . I'm standing over here.