three of the pictures the camera imprinted its own ideas onto.

now, apparently, it's all back to normal, except for the splotch on the lens, which shows up now and then (often at the most inopportune times) and has to be lived with, or hidden, either in a murky spot in the photograph, or obliterated by the light, if you hold the camera at just the right angle and the light is just right.

I suppose if I took a fabulous picture I loved, I could photoshop the blotch away. I may do that, at some point. editing. all I do with the pictures at this point is rotate them clockwise, so that they aren't sideways. I take almost everything portrait instead of the landscape the camera is built for.

though lately, I don't know why, laziness maybe, a desire not to spend any more time clicking the mouse than I must, lately I've been seeing things landscape.

and in gorgeous colours! dave's filters arrived in the mail and oh the girls and I are thrilled. my eight year old has chosen her favourite colour to view the world through (rose pink, no surprise there, she does see the world that way) and my seven year old has chosen steel blue, no. 254 or something. she's already hard at work memorizing the colour names and numbers, for no reason other than because she loves to know those sorts of things.

and my oldest daughter has colours of her own, inside. this year they start coming out. call it mother's intuition, or magic, patient observation or just optimism.

yes, I can be optimistic. I might look a long time before I leap, or leap all too impulsively. but this year I'm more sensible than selfish, or selfless. and much happier because of it. I've almost got myself sorted out. amazing how that happens, when you stop cutting off parts of yourself to squeeze into slippers that don't quite fit.

well now. the last oddest thing that happened? it just unhappened.

I'm not really sure what that means, but I'm sure it's significant some way.

wouldn't you say so?

I've been deleting things today.

believe it or not. and a friend tells me it's because I'm learning valuable lessons about non-attachment and ephemerality and (wait. is that a word? I'm getting the red squiggly line.

hmm. none of the suggested words seems to fit, so ephemerality it is, red squiggly line be damned.

well all I have to say is that non-attachment and ephemerality both suck. this is not a profound sort of statement, I know. apparently the oracle left the building and don't look at me, I'm just here to sweep up the place. I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.


if I was younger and in better shape I'd probably be dancing circles around things, and traveling from town to town with the gypsy puppet circus or something. I think I'd be a fine cabaret act. or burlesque even, if the lighting was kind, and there was enough artfully draped fabric around.

sometimes I think it's scripts I'm writing, pieces of dialogues that haven't happened but then again may have, I just might not know it, or know of it obliquely, having overheard it sometime around the middle of next week.


ha. that'd be rich. finally putting that drama class to some good use. and I have to say, on a slightly related note, that yes okay. math did occasionally come in handy. but never once has the principal export of any country come up in conversation. and don't ask me where that came from, I'm pretty much done holding back. I'll just edit later, I'm writing too many books at one time to bother with sorting things out now. I surrender to the way I am and the way my mind works and every day I'll just get up again and remember not to give myself such a hard time for being someone who prefers quiet to loud (but can enjoy a party on occasion) and old-fashioned to whatever the latest version of original is on television. I haven't watched in months, the last time was a football game, and even then I could only bear part of it, and that was done for love. not that I couldn't love television, I used to watch Coronation Street and St. Elsewhere. Hill St. Blues. oh I loved that one.


but now I've lost myself. thinking of the joy of watching television, and what it was that I really enjoyed was the cleverness of the dialogue, the art of it. and the images, the way they said more than they were saying, the subtext living in the pauses and the shadows. or the characters, very painfully and beautifully flawed. and the losing myself, I suppose. now I just do it with paint, that's another surrender. I may not ever sell a single painting. I may, in fact, paint over and over the same canvas (well. I gave it away. but the next one.) and just the act of painting is enough to pull me up and I'm lost and I come back down and wonder what was all the fuss about and why couldn't I see what was so plainly and irrevocably in front of me and that fact is that nothing lasts forever and of course, there it is. the moment of decision. do I admit my big epiphany is just plain common sense, or do I dress it up and make it into the next way to divide people according to what they believe and what they don't.


it's all spin, I suppose. and I know that's an over-used word but I like it. though I'd probably have called it slant. but that's me. I'm kind of picky about words.

tonight my daughters held an impromptu dance lesson in the kitchen while I sang on the back step.

I came upon them unawares, and smiled, singing, watching them through the windowed and the screened door. they didn't notice at first but didn't stop dancing when they did see me, and didn't give me much more than an acknowledging smile, intent on their work.

I can't remember what the song was now, the one going into my ears and the variations coming out of my mouth, but the dance they were doing was about two birds, a purple and a green one.


they moved in synchronized and stylized patterns, my littlest daughters in their matching pink pajamas, both of them needing to move up a size, maybe two for the older of them. busy practicing performances to melt their big sister's heart the next time she comes to visit.

they've been learning to serve food, do the laundry and use their best manners. both of them are reading chapter books, though picture books haven't lost their appeal.


it was a sweet moment, an appreciated manifestation of careful, prudent work. and no painting could match it, no paycheck encompass it. I felt a job well done settle on me, pinning me back onto the fabric of the life I've chosen. if I could say one thing to my mother it would be that yes. everything you did right or wrong mattered. it was noticed. it was appreciated. you just left too soon. but it's okay. I still love you. happy mother's day, and I did mean to get you a card, you know how I put things off.

but I wrote you a poem.

the fate of stars. well. inspired by it, anyway.

the inspiration to which I'm referring is this beautiful poem of Pauline's. she was gracious enough, some time ago, to give me permission to find or make images to go with it. these two pictures are close to what I wanted, or close to part of what I wanted. of course at this point, my only model is myself. but by the time I get to the point of taking the kinds of pictures I want to take, I'll have done enough experimenting and learning not to waste someone else's time, I'll not be limited as far as having to work around the very obvious (but for the most part accepted) flaws in the material and I'll know exactly what it is that I want, and how to achieve that particular effect.

The Fate of Stars

The full moon sweeps the stars from out its arc,
The way a queen of light fans out her cloak.
Her subjects genuflect beside the dark.

They wait her passing ere they make their mark,
Those lights whose trails are mere celestial smoke.
The full moon sweeps the stars from out its arc.

Whereas the new moon sweeps with darkened broom,
A Cinderella brushing of the grate,
Her subjects genuflect beside the dark.

And wait her order ere they light the room.
Two moons, two queens to honor, is their fate.
The full moon sweeps the stars from out its arc.

The new moon would not dare to so presume.
She makes the darkened sky her own estate.
Her subjects genuflect beside the dark.

Two moons, two queens, one kingdom cold and stark,
And though the new moon’s kindness stars invoke,
The full moon sweeps the stars from out its arc,
Her subjects genuflect beside the dark.

Pauline, with her typical modesty, would no doubt not hesitate to remind you it was an early attempt at the form. I think it's a lovely, lyrical piece of writing, and if I could marry it to a piece of music, I most certainly would.

actually, that particular piece of writing has sparked many photographs in the shed, and every time I look at the moon (which is as often as I can, finding it quite soothing or energizing to look at, depending on various things) I think of the two queens. I had wanted very badly to make it into a song, but the only way I could do that was to mess with it too much, and that spoiled it, so I gave up.

in my mind, there is a whole full moon/new moon installation of poetry, music, photographs, video and so on. my mind is a very busy place. unfortunately, there are more windows than doors at this point, but at some point everything will become a door, or a window large enough for any idea to break out and act upon itself. I have only recently come to the realization that it's neither possible nor necessary for me to be the one to realize every idea that lives in my head.

so now I go blithely along (most days. some days blitheness eludes me) scattering half-formed ideas like the seeds I suppose they are.

the first time that I opened my eyes and fell in love.

it was to the recognition of my mother's softer face. and that of her mother, my aunts, my sister, and all my daughters.

one unbroken shining chain, backwards and forwards.

there's something wrong with my camera.

of course, my husband tells me I've just exhausted it. the first thing that happened wasn't the camera at all, but the memory card going bad. (apparently I caused it undue stress.) that was why my camera was gone for a week or two or however long it was, with the bad card in it wouldn't even turn on. and I was sure I had tried taking the bad card out and turning it on, but perhaps not. I had spoken about that in a previous post. so once that was sorted out I was taking pictures again, with only a 512mb card, the 2gb card having given up the ghost.



and then my holga came, and after I oohed over its clunky plastic cheapness (as fine to me as the most expensive camera would be, just in a different way) I managed to get the film in (imagine. me with my clumsy hands that can't hold anything properly, fussing with the little spool and sprocket or whatever. it took me fifteen minutes or more to get the film loaded. if it hadn't been so irritating and painful it might have been funny. I expect to anyone watching it might have looked quite entertaining, like a circus performer under the influence. though I swear I was as sober as a judge at the time.)

anyway, I shot that roll of film, my first since 2000? maybe 2001. I took pictures of the strangest things, and the most mundane, until no more could be taken. I don't expect a single one to be worth the cost of having them developed, but I'll have them developed anyway. of course that might take some time. I've decided to start my own slow-living movement. I miss so much and get so addled when I hurry.



and then my digital camera (jealous?) began to do the oddest things. a moire pattern appeared. and suddenly everything was incredibly overexposed, as if the camera had seen the light and decided to keep it all inside, and obliterate all the things I was pointing it at.

so it's been an interesting couple of days, experimenting. the holga set aside for now until I'm ready to begin again the task of loading film. imagine a lobster trying to load film, in the dark, cursing, and that will give you some idea. the digital camera (which still takes fine video) has had some settings adjusted, and I took some pictures this morning that are interesting, to say the least.

in the process, I found menu options I didn't know were there! this thrilled me, more things to painstakingly teach myself when I could just as easily go buy a new one - my husband's ready to - or ask someone what to do. but no, that's not near as satisfactory as puzzling over it myself.

and so this morning before a friend came by to pick me up so she could run and I could amble around the lake in the morning sunshine, I was rummaging through boxes, looking for things to take pictures through, in an attempt to control the light coming in.

an old slide, wax paper, a piece of black lace from a discarded unmentionable, all created more interesting effects.

but I think what I need are pieces of coloured cellophane.

(ah! a dollar/thrift store visit in the near future. life is good.)