Mountain Bluebird with Delphiniums

Mountain Bluebird with Delphiniums / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 includes shipping

sold! 

WOODY, THE SMALLEST of my four dogs, has a pretty huge personality. He is a stalwart little guy, weighing in at about 13 pounds, but taking up three or four times that space in character and grit.

He's 14, and he is mostly deaf and mostly blind. He can see a little, but probably just big shapes and shifting patterns of light and dark. But this doesn't faze him. He begs to go on walks with the other three, he entreats The Demons to play with him, he barks at the fence with as much ferocity as he can muster - and he has finally, after nine years, decided that the studio is not a dog-killing room, but the Best Place on Earth to hang out.

My house here in Wachapreague started its life as a grocery store elsewhere in town, and was moved to this spot about 50 years ago. It's not a big house, but it has a huge living room, which I imagine was the main shopping area of the grocery store. It's big enough that Peter had one couch, and I had another - and there's still plenty of room for a dining-room table (where we piled junk and never ate), two dog crates, a couple bookshelves, etc.

Now that Peter is gone, I want to change things. I want to move that dining room table so that in the evenings, I can sit there and make cards, or paint glassware, or do whatever crafty project I'm involved in. That means getting rid of Peter's couch. So I moved it to the back of the room, moved the dining room table, and then changed the other stuff around.

And now, of course, Woody's well-worn and well-known paths through the living room don't work.

He is not bumping into things, but he is finding dead ends. I had to show him a way around some furniture that was partly blocking one of his favorite routes. He likes to sleep under the coffee table, and it took him a while to find it. He is mixed up, uncomfortable and hesitant.

I feel much the same, about the room, about my life. Neither, right now, is the way I want it. I'm not crashing into things, but I'm not sure where I'm going, either. And like Woody, I haven't found my comfort yet.

But that little dog is a trouper, and he does not complain. He will find his way. I will, too.

***

For Today

"If we did all the things we were capable of, we would literally astound ourselves." 

-Thomas Edison 

Mountain Bluebird

Mountain Bluebird / Oil on black canvas, unframed / 5x7 / $68 includes shipping

I HAD A LOW WEEK last week. It was nothing big. But given Peter's death, I've felt pretty buoyant during these weeks of isolation and virtual quarantine. Last week, I felt lonely. 

Then a friend called, someone I hadn't heard from in a while, someone whose husband had died far more recently than Peter, and she mentioned that she had made a list of people to call regularly, and I was on it. 

That prompted me to make a little list myself, and start calling and writing to my friends and my family, and it helped. 

Drinking more water seemed to help, as did adding more protein into my diet, and sleeping a bit more. I've been walking pretty much every day, and I know that that helps. 

I lightened up on myself a little. If I don't have a bird for every single day this week, it's OK. I have a couple that haven't sold, and I can bring them back for another go. Or I can skip a day, or two, or a week - or just stop (but I don't want to do this). 

I want to have an online sale in time for Mother's Day, and I will - but it doesn't have to start today. It can start tomorrow or the next day or the day after that. 

If the house isn't exactly as clean as it could be, well, too bad. Same with the studio. Same with the dogs. And the bathroom. And the laundry. 

So I thought all this, and did all this, and realized all this, and I began to feel a little better. A little bouncier. A little more like myself, whatever that is in this post-Peter world. 

I guess my point in all of this is that this is a tough time for everyone. We would do ourselves good, I think, if we remembered more often that we are fragile, and fallible, and that we need friends and family and contact with people, in whatever ways we can get it. 

No matter how I may welcome the quiet of this time of isolation - and I do - I know I need to hear another voice, read another person's words, listen to someone else's thoughts and heart, if I am to know and accept my own, and go on with some light and some hope. 

***

Gratitude

I AM GRATEFUL to have realized all of this, and particularly grateful to the friend who called and reminded me to reach out for my own good mental and spiritual health. 

***

For Today

Percy Wakes Me

Percy wakes me and I am not ready.

He had slept all night under the covers.

Now he's eager for action: a walk, then breakfast.

So I hasten up. He is sitting on the kitchen counter

   where he is not supposed to be.

How wonderful you are, I say. How clever, if you

   needed me,

      to wake me.

He thought he would hear a lecture and deeply

   his eyes begin to shine.

He tumbles onto the couch for more compliments.

He squirms and squeals; he has done something

   that he needed

      and now he hears that it is okay.

I scratch his ears, I turn him over

   and touch him everywhere. He is

wild with the okayness of it. Then we walk, then

   he has breakfast, and he is happy.

This is a poem about Percy.

This is a poem about more than Percy.

Think about it.

- Mary Oliver

from "Dog Songs"