melismata

Pardon the swooping camerawork. It was my left hand's doing.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 05:39:00 +0000

“These are days when no one should rely unduly on his competence. Strength lies in improvisation. All the decisive blows are struck left-handed.”

Walter Benjamin

Well I didn't meet my first, second, or third deadlines.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:06:00 +0000

But. I did manage to finish the things I was working on - or if not finish (what's ever finished?) at least get them to point where I could pack them up and ship them off. It didn't cost as much as I thought, and the box was bigger than I'd realized, and I have no idea what sort of reception it's going to get when it gets to where it's going. (A puzzled one, is my guess.) Next time will be easier.

It occurs to me that this is the first time I've sent work off to stand on its own without me there to fuss with it. I expect that was some of the difficulty.

I really have trouble shutting out distractions.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:52:00 +0000

Not all the time, mind you. Sometimes I can be so focused on something that I can't quite bring myself to believe life itself doesn't stop for the moments that the paint stops being paint and just becomes color, and then beyond color, just thick slickness and the brush not making strokes but only pushing or pulling the color, and making waves in the wet yellow or red or whatever it is. Red and black lately, and then both, to make a deep, satisfying brown. And then I get lost doing that, and forget everything else, and then the world comes back and the connection to something other than everyday life gets thinner and is finally pulled apart altogether. Or not, I suppose, the connection goes on in the background. But love and laundry and sandwiches intrude sometimes, and yes, intrude sounds so harsh, and I don't mean it be harsh. It's just that sometimes I wish I could only please myself. But I come back to my senses after a while. It's the same connection, just expressed another way, and whether it's paint or lunch, if it's done with care and dedication I suppose it's all pretty much the same thing.

So I have this deadline tomorrow.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 07:42:00 +0000

And I suppose I should be running around in a panicked sort of way, but I'm not. I'm not sure if this is progress or self-delusion and denial, but I've considered and rejected several plans as far as this deadline goes, and then they all were swept aside by a new plan tonight, and so now I'm thinking, well I don't have to mail this until tomorrow by the time the post office closes. If I get up in the morning, put on my fancy new overalls, knock some of the dirt off my sensible shoes and wear those sort of fishscale blue-green dangly earrings, and go to town, I can busy some good-sized sheets of fat luscious white paper and some sharpies and draw the whole thing, fold it up in intricate and eccentric ways, and put it in a box, bind that box with wire and tighten the wire with little bamboo pegs and be satisfied. And satisfy the commitment. So there's no sense running around trying to do a million things and worrying none will be good enough.

In any case, it's almost midnight and I've still got things to clean up because some of my works of art are in the way of tomorrow's breakfast. I'm hoping it's pancakes and sausages. I just wish we hadn't eaten all the strawberries. If it's me cooking we'll probably just have oatmeal, or scrambled eggs. But my husband likes to fuss over breakfasts, and we all enjoy that.

I tend to fret too much about things, and that makes me cranky. I'm making progress, but it's slow going, I must say. And then add the whole artistic temperament and a family history of eccentricities and so on and honestly. I think I'm doing quite well, all things considered.

At last. A day celebrating my most favorite clothing.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:54:00 +0000

Because when I wear them (as opposed to my other favorite clothing item, a long skirt) I can carry everything I need in my pockets (purses are not my thing, really) and I can muck out the creek, paint a picture, sweep the floor, sit on the grass. I love standing out in the fresh air, hands in pockets, listening to the birds. I walk differently in my overalls. I don't feel only feminine, or masculine, but both, or neither. I feel like a whole, comfortable self. I feel capable, and strong.

I wear them to the hardware store, the grocery store, and have danced the night away in them at our favorite little blues bar. My husband calls me "Farmer Girl".

No, they're not a high-fashion item. No, they're not particularly kind to a figure with more than a little extra around the middle (except they do give that middle room!) but I've had smiles and compliments from both women and men, and more importantly, I like the way I feel when I wear them.

If I need to fancy them up, I put on a gauzy hippie shirt and some earrings, and I'm ready to go. I've had people (younger women, or stylish younger men) look askance at them, but it doesn't bother me at all. I wear them with white or black tank tops summer and winter (I like to have my arms bare, because I'm vain about them, and I get overheated with sleeves now, actually) and usually have a few pens in one bib pocket, and my ever-present camera in the other, with the camera strap around my neck for jewelry.

And every time I see someone else wearing them I feel a sort of kinship. So I smile, and say, "Nice overalls!" and invariably get a happy, relaxed smile in return.

Happy Overalls Day! Be sure to stop over here to meet someone who loves them even more than I do.

I'm getting quite fond of painting directly on the wall.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:17:00 +0000

Especially with the texture these walls have on them. I like to paint and paint over, and scrub some of it off, and put on more and so on, in what you might not be at all surprised to find out is a very obsessive, unplanned and meandering process. My husband says well, it livens up the walls and it makes you happy, so I don't mind the painting all over the walls. He's not much for art, my husband, but he did buy me a very nice Van Gogh print of The Starry Night, and it hangs over the fireplace, and one night it started sort of drifting out onto the walls, and that part of the painting is definitely a love song to my mother, who also loved the picture. I gave her a print of it once. And my aunt gave me a nice big plate with the picture on it, and we use it to serve fancy bits and pieces when company comes by.

This isn't that part of the wall. This is in the kitchen. It's a cold room, with dull beige (well. mushroom soup) coloured tiles on the floor and countertops and for a backsplash, but it feels much warmer now, even with the chilly and unforgiving floor. The painting's not at all completed, but I just wander around with a colour and then put it wherever I feel like, with no particular plan in mind other than putting paint on the walls, and sometimes I go into what I suppose could be called dissociative states, but it's not as if I'm gone somewhere, it's just that I can't quite experience the world the same way when I'm part of the wall, if that makes any sense, and I suppose it may or may not.

And I'm not even fifty yet! This late blooming is highly under-rated, I think.

As is not at all unusual, I don't have anything in particular of importance to relate.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:13:00 +0000

But then again, what's of importance and what isn't? I don't really consider myself qualified to judge that, at least not at the moment.

Sometimes I have an idea that I've caught the tail of the point of things. Like it's something slinking off around an existential corner, either drawing me along or leaving me behind.

Of course it's hard to think at all with three girls in the house. So I won't bother, for the moment.

It rained and rained all day; it was lovely.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:15:00 +0000

So soccer practice was canceled, and instead we had a nice evening at home.

Now the girls are in bed, finishing up quiet reading time, and once I post this little snippet I'm going to go do some painting. The dishwasher's going, the laundry's mostly caught up, the house is tidy enough and tomorrow I've promised myself (and informed others!) that I'll take the whole day to gather up stuff for the art event on Sunday. I'm very happy and excited about it. I'm even going to get my face painted and everything. And there'll be a parade, and tamales, and we get to dance - possibly in the rain again, like last year - through the gates of Chinatown with a band and banners and there'll be hot chocolate too.

Remind me how sweet life is when I go back into woe-is-me mode.

So much for posting more often.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:39:00 +0000

But between soccer games and building altars in the shed, painting murals on the walls in the house and in a shed across town, thinking deep thoughts and listening to the birds, the days just go by, the way days will.

Yesterday my mother would have been 72 years old. She was the god of my childhood, and her moods were the weather, her face the sky. I regret she didn't live long enough to see me happy. I wish I'd seen her happy more often, and knew her better as a person and not just "mother", but wishing doesn't accomplish much, and so long after the fact it's even more of a misdirection of energy.

Does she look down on me from some great height, does she fly past me in the shape of a dragonfly, did I gather her into me in the hospital room when she died and "Don't Fence Me In" played in the background, just before six o'clock, with the oxygen gurgling and me trying to understand how my grandmother's face had eclipsed my mother's, like a mask had been slipped on. Will my mother's face be mine when I die? I know one thing. My children will know me better, and worse, and much more fully.

I wish you didn't have to die, said my eight year old daughter. I know, I said. I wish no one had to die, said my nine year old daughter. I know, I said. But think of it this way. Imagine the confusion and crowding if no one ever died. Imagine all the new ideas that would never come to be. Oh well, says one of them in reply, it's all just part of the cycle of life. And I promised not to die for many, many years. And I told them stories about how it would be when I was old and calling them to do things for me, and how they'd come home from college and tell me things, and they got up on a stool and we played at them being grownups and me being white-haired and sweet-tempered, or not.

I bet you miss your Mom, they said.

I do, I said.

A friend of mine has lovely hydrangeas.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 04:39:00 +0000

I asked if I could cut some, to display as part of an art-thing I did a couple of weeks ago. She graciously agreed. These hydrangeas are not those ones (I left them there, I don't know where they went to when the booth was taken down) but some others, from the same bush, and a piece of the timber bamboo my husband dragged home one day from the side of the road.

My mind's blank.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:47:00 +0000

But I haven't posted anything in a while, and I'd like to get back into the habit of it. I haven't been at the computer much lately. I've been painting a lot, on the walls in the house, a bit on the shed, and I made seven dollars painting the eyes and whiskers back on a tea-kettle-cat. (I didn't do a very good job on the whiskers.)

Today at soccer practice my daughter absconded with my sketchbook and four of my pens, to go draw and giggle with her friends while her sister ran around the field. I held some loose papers on my lap and drew on that, nothing in particular, just whatever came to mind. My daughter's friends came over and oohed over my picture and my daughter proudly told them I'd begun painting their room like a jungle. One of the girls complimented me and told me I should be an artist. I thanked her and said I just happened to be an artist, which impressed her to no end.

The days are cooler and shorter and the afternoon light when it comes is even more beautiful than it was in summer, when it became oppressive and I longed for rain. Yesterday the sun shone while the rain fell and the birds sang and I enjoyed it from the house looking out at the shed and the shed looking back at the house.

I came to epiphanies about control and illusion. It was a full day. I made meals, beds, apologies, progress.

Now if I could just grit my teeth and sit down at the computer and sort out my pictures. There are just so many.

In my dreams I have two weeks alone by the ocean to write, draw and paint.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:19:00 +0000

Or just to walk aimlessly along the beach, or not walk at all but just sit and listen to the water. Drape kelp in odd patterns. Build bonfires from driftwood. Carve the damp, firm sand.

I haven't been taking many pictures lately.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:41:00 +0000

I'm not certain why. It doesn't seem to pull at me, the camera, so I don't pick it up, and the days go by and of course now that I'm thinking about this I wonder: am I reminding myself to charge the battery and light some candles tonight in the shed and take some pictures after I maybe paint a bit more on the walls.

I'm making slow but steady progress, though of course the work would go along faster if I had a plan and didn't just paint ecstatically, without stopping, and without intention other than dipping the brush and seeing what happens when I push the brush this way or that way, or mix this with that, or scrub with the brush almost dry, or scrape with the edge of the metal part, and uncover something, and cover it again, and of course as I'm writing this there's the part of me that sits back and says oh yes, obsession, a classic case, but don't we all have our crosses to bear, I suppose we do, and apparently this sort of pre-occupation is mine, and some days what a delight that burden is to carry, or to set aside for a moment or two, and choose to pick up again, and see in an unfamiliar and clarifying light.

I sang for my sister by the fire.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:21:00 +0000

No accompaniment, spontaneous, as natural as speaking. Hoarse, from too much speaking, and tears given into and tears held back, some of joy and some of a deep and unrelenting sorrow, for all the wasted days and misunderstandings.

But it was a true moment, and we both cried, and hugged each other, and promised to keep in better touch.

Doing laundry today, packing bags, considering what to take.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:43:00 +0000

My overalls, of course, the neatest pair, with the least amount of paint on them. And some long gypsy skirts and tank tops, to be comfortable in, and a nice dress for the ceremony - I hope to find one today that suits me, but if not, I've got one that will do. I don't expect my wardrobe will be the concern of anyone but me, really, and when I think of all the time I've spent in my life worrying about what to wear, honestly. It vexes me often, my fretting over inconsequentialities.

I've gotten the house ready, am going to try and leave it as clean and happy as possible. My nine year old is all full of preteen melancholy about our upcoming separation; my eight year old will miss me too, but more importantly, she's looking forward to a suitcase full of surprises when I come home. My husband says he and the girls will probably spend much of time relaxing and making messes, and then they'll be tidying up and preparing in a hurry the last day, to be ready for my return.

I don't expect there'll be much of any time for quiet reflection while I'm there. But then I've got my shed to come back to, and the fall still ahead, with cooler weather to fill up with all sorts of projects, as I've come to realize I need the structure and deadlines and challenges posed by projects in order to feel a sense of progress and purpose and accomplishment.

What am I going to wear to my father's wedding?

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:06:00 +0000

I take it as quite a good sign that the most important question still to be answered about my upcoming trip has to do with my wardrobe. My father is getting married again, and I'm very happy for him. It'll be an adjustment, that's for certain, but I consider it another layer of love added onto his life, and not in any way a replacement of the love he had with my mother. I was immediately happy when he told me (happy for him) and then after I spoke to him I was hit with a wave of emotion, and cried, and it seemed as if it brought my mother's loss into a finer, closer focus. Or maybe made it new again, fresh hurt. But since then it's been much gentler than I thought it would be, and I'll be there for five days, seeing family I haven't seen in years, and I'll be on my own with my husband and the girls here waiting for me to come home, and I can't wear my overalls to the ceremony, so I suppose I'll have to find some kind of dress.

A rusty old truck, broken glass and a birdhouse. What more could I ask for?

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:07:00 +0000

I could have quite happily taken pictures of this old truck for - well. Hours is what I was going to say. Days is probably more accurate. Or years, even. If only I had a rusty old truck of my own to put stuff on, decorate with leaves and spiderwebs and moss, and take pictures of, year after year, in the rain, in the snow, in that almost perfect light in the late afternoon, just after it's rained and everything goes the colour of toffee, but only briefly. I love that light.

Only in America would anyone drive through a tree.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 03:25:00 +0000

The girls loved it, of course, and my husband thought it was quite cool to be able to drive through a living redwood. I laughed at them (not unkindly) but no-one took offense. And the lady who took our money at the entrance booth was sweet and very welcoming, and you just know we must have been the millionth family to come through and ask the same questions.

This isn't a picture of that tree, of course. It's the side of the car, and the road. The oddest things catch my eye.

We're off to see the redwoods tomorrow, and watch the sun set over the ocean.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:47:00 +0000

The road trip snacks (and some sensible food) have been purchased, the route planned out, the hotel chosen. The girls are excited, my husband's beside himself with excitement (he even bought himself a new wild road trip shirt, a tradition we established years ago) and I'm pleased but mostly consumed with making sure nothing's forgotten, the house is clean, and all batteries, literal and metaphorical, are charged.

So. Tea's made, dishwasher's going, camera and phone are charging, girls are happily reading and playing, and I'm off to the shed to go listen to birds, breathe in the smell of last night's rain, paint a bit, sing a bit, and then it's back inside to boss everyone around and make sure we leave the house smelling sweet and clean and ready to come home to.

So this new camera is pretty slick, I must say.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 22:11:00 +0000

And I was briefly setting my heart against loving it, because it's a Sony and not a Fuji like the last two. (The HP was first. 1.3 megapixels, and no video. I still have it, though I suppose I should recycle it or something.)

But. This one can shoot video in sepia or black and white. It doesn't (sadly) have a Kodachrome setting for photographs, though. I do miss that.

The new camera has a slideshow option for reviewing pictures. The sound for video playback isn't good at all, the Fuji was better for that. Overall, though, I'd have to say it was a good idea to buy it.

But the memory card, oh my goodness. Eight gigabytes of picture and video storage. What in the world was my husband thinking? Now how am I supposed to get anything done besides documenting the way the light falls differently on wet gravel than it does on dry, or, oh yes! burst picture taking mode. Like stop motion animation, I love it. So now I'm taking way too many pictures of the cross-eyed Siamese cat who deigns to live with us. I watch him stalking things, the way cats do, and I take pictures of him for long moments a time, in black and white, against the bamboo.

I can't imagine that I've got much of any consequence to say.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 04:55:00 +0000

(This could preface many blog posts, couldn't it? Mine included, of course.)

It's not the

connection is the word that comes to mind when I try to hold the idea of what it is I think is best about the way I can sit here nattering on about everything/nothing and

dishwasher's going. sounds companionable. There was a helicopter (I think it was a helicopter. At least I think I remember thinking that at the time, I've forgotten now what it sounded like exactly but I do know it was a sound I haven't heard before. I pay attention to things like the difference in the sound of the mailtruck and the UPS truck and the way our neighbor's truck next door starts up is a distinct signature, or not, not a signature but a song, I suppose, as much as a bird's noise is its song.

Whatever. I don't know where the words come from, and often now I don't bother worrying about why I don't know that, or what it might mean or how it might be interpreted or misinterpreted or completely ignored, not even noticed, what was that over there, did you see it? No, it wasn't there, it was only the shadow of the thought of it that appeared there briefly.

We had dragonflies today in the just-watered garden, sunning themselves and thrilling their wings as they sat on the tops of sticks cut from the little ornamental cherry tree that's grown all crooked. It's been badly pruned, but it wasn't done out of anything other than a lack of something, foresight, patience, something like that.

Tired all of a sudden. Didn't do so much today but did get some things done, and was nice part of the time and kind of grumpy the other part but it was pretty much not such a bad day. Hot though.

I had several very good ideas today.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 05:13:00 +0000

But that was hours ago, and all sorts of things and events have transpired; conspired to cause me to forget those particular shed epiphanies.

But. The idea is energy, and energy cannot be lost, only momentarily transformed, transmitted, transubstantiated.

I'm tired. I unloaded a pickup truck full of gravel yesterday, and spread it out by the shed, swept and brushed and washed out the truck bed (next time, a clever blue tarp before the gravel goes in) and the day before that we had a garden party with a live and very cool band who are friends of ours, and before that it was getting ready for that, and now it's getting ready for the next thing, and the days go by and it's hot, blue skies, popsicles, and don't I wish I could travel back in time and give this whole happy relaxed loving joyful me to the child who suffered the despondent and confused mother. I didn't have any joy of my own then, and now I do. That feels like betrayal some days, and just the way it goes on other days; life teaches, and some of us learn faster than others and some of us

us, me, you. Pronouns are such tricky things.

Anyway, enough of that nonsense. Here's the latest picture of the shed.

The shed as I found it not quite three years ago.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 05:58:00 +0000

Today I started painting the concrete wall in front of our house.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 03:19:00 +0000

This is, of course, after I started painting the living room, kitchen and bathroom walls, the back door, one of the shed doors (they're currently detached from the shed and awaiting an opportunity to go to town) and of course inside and outside the shed here and there, the shed floor, a length of PVC pipe and a few other things I'm sure. I like to paint.

I'm curious to see his reaction when he sees the living room wall. I'll let you know how it goes. I expect a sigh, a smile and a comment like "Honey, you're an artist. There's no denying it."

The shed's getting to more of a finished state, the garage is in the beginning stages, but oh the house and all those white textured walls, and the way the cheap craft paint goes on like cream and dries like chalk, but no, more like velveteen.

According to Wikipedia, this is what autodyne means.

noreply@blogger.com (shara) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 05:56:00 +0000

The autodyne circuit was an improvement to radio signal amplification using the De Forest Audion light bulb type amplifier.

It goes on for a paragraph or so like that, but you can look it up yourself if you're interested. So how that definition affects the understanding of the phrase mentioned in the next post, in which autodyne plays a part (oscillating?) I just don't know.

I'm aware it's a glitch in the translation, the transmission, or intended transmission.

I just found it interesting enough to waste some time amusing myself, and I thought it might amuse you as well or at least just puzzle you for a moment, or cause you to smile and say well, autodyne. Now there's a word you don't see everyday. I wonder what the hell it means.