September 3, 2012
On Day Three of thick mountain fog and rain, Cheyenne and I can see only about thirty feet down the driveway. For three days the mountains and valleys, the sun and clouds, the apple trees and the granite rocks down the slope remain blanketed in white. Raindrops splat loudly on the skylight, so I turn up the volume on my computer as I listen to the CD version of The Healing by Jonathan Odell. I read the novel a few weeks back and loved it, even wrote to the author to compliment him on his creation. A friend recommended the audio book version, so I listen to GranGran's stories here in my cozy mountain home surrounded by blank white walls of fog. The novel is even better the second time around!
What strikes me today is how happy I am to be here secluded and alone. You may have read an archive post when I was stuck in the fog and how hard it was for me. This time everything is different. A candle burns on the island as I pray for a friend who tragically lost her adult daughter this weekend. A small plastic car garage, two green and blue balls, The Runaway Bunny and new artwork on the refrigerator remind me of the twins' visit overnight while their parents camped. I hear their laughter and see them run through the room on a mission of making a baby bed or looking at the mountains through a magnifying glass.
The dinner table is covered in weavings, the coffee table hosts fingerless gloves and yarn for premie hats. Beside my favorite chairs, two prayer shawls wait in their respective bags for me to add inches.
Three large baskets of yarn can't contain the skeins and skeins I have available for weavings. Greens and purples spill onto the carpet. I leave them because I am alone. I finished a large piece for a friend yesterday, so today I will begin a new weaving that is already calling to me and continue my work on a larger hanging for over our fireplace.
I am grateful for this time of solitude and creating. I feel like the luckiest person alive to be right where I want to be doing exactly what I want to do all day long. At night I watch the DNC with all the energy and anticipation packed into Charlotte and am grateful to be here, able to watch from afar yet thankful for the work of so many people who are dedicated to improving our country.
It seems the fog has become my friend, a companion in creativity, a condition that allows me focus and enjoy stillness as I weave and knit my love and prayers into colorful cloth of one kind or another.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
A Beginning
While this is a date forever tinged with deep sadness and loss, for me it is also the anniversary of a new beginning. It is the day when, on a Wildacres Residency, I first claimed the writer and poet in me. So on this morning I am grateful to Philip Blumenthal, the Blumenthal Foundation, and Mike and Kathryn House for the opportunity to find refuge in the Cabin where poems first emerged and where my creative life awakened. For eleven years, Wildacres has nurtured and birthed various creative experiences and gifts in me: writing, painting, pot-throwing, knitting and weaving. I have made great friends and spent quality time with my sisters. I have attended and facilitated workshops. I arrived on the mountain thinking maybe I could write. I left knowing I could. I did not dream of how significant Wildacres would be to me in the years to come. May Wildacres long continue to offer space and support and new beginnings in the years ahead.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
