Morning in the Hills

Morning in the Hills / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68, including shipping!  

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(I've been having trouble with the PayPal buttons recently, so if you want this painting and the button doesn't seem to work, please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com - thank you!)

THE OTHER DAY, I HEARD MYSELF LAUGH, and I realized that I hadn't laughed since Peter died. I hadn't laughed in almost a year. The recognition of that fact shocked me.

And then I felt guilty for laughing, for feeling good enough and happy enough to laugh, when Peter was dead, and not here to laugh with me. 

And then I told myself that he would want me to laugh. He loved to make me laugh, and he did it better and more often than anyone in my life ever has. It's one of the reasons I loved him so much. He was gruff, and often, a curmudgeon. He was a Finn, and he had depression, and was often quite dark. But still, he was the funniest person I've met - partly because he was so smart. And so twisted.

And he could be so silly. Here's a photo montage he made of himself - for no apparent reason - just because it made him laugh, and he knew it would make me laugh, too. 

I've laughed a few more times since, and it feels awkward in my heart. But I will think of him in his pink tutu, in his many hats, in his white boots, making his dry, hilarious comments about people and the world, and I'll know that he wants me to live, to enjoy my life, to sing, to sleep well and eat well and probably most of all, to laugh. 

***

A Last Thought

    October

O hushed October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,

Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;

Tomorrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,

Begin the hours of this day slow.

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,

Beguile us in the way you know.

Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf;

One from our trees, one far away.

Retard the sun with gentle mist;

Enchant the land with amethyst.

Slow, slow!

For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—

For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

- Robert Frost

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

Hummer at Red Flower

Hummer at Red Flower / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 includes shipping

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TODAY AND YESTERDAY, in the amazing, heavy, mind-blurring heat, I've decided to take it easy. I've stayed inside, in the air-conditioning, napping and reading and watching "Silent Witness," a British crime drama that goes on for season after season after season. 

It's never hot in British shows, have you noticed? It rains, sure, and sometimes there's snow, or weather identifiable as "winter," but I've never seen a character wearing shorts (except for tennis) or sweating, or even looking like she is out on a hot summer day. Or am I just thinking narrowly? 

In the heat here, the ants seem to have found magically instant paths to invade the hummingbird feeders, and of course, the hummers won't go near them with the ants - would you? So I've taken the feeders down for the time being. I miss them! Miss the buzz and blur of the birds, their nasty battles for dominance and ownership, their beautiful colors flashing in the sun. In a day or so, I will try again. There are plenty of flowers available here on the shore, so I think the hummers will be OK until my feeders go back up. 

***

For Today

"Life begins at the end of your comfort zone." 

- Neale Donald Walsch