none of your beeswax

i was just going to call this post what it is (which is an ode to chapstick), but i got worried about copyright infringement.  and, also, i don't really want this blog popping up in someone's google-search for the product.  not really.  even if it is search result 5,318,029 of 5,940,000 gathered within 0.29 seconds.  well, maybe i do kind of think that would be okay.  just a little bit.

sometimes, one of my posts comes out of a wandering mind trying to find a pattern.  really, that's probably what all of them are:  finding and following the smoke trail that will make sense of things.  put everything in its place so that i can go back to ignoring it for a time.

today,

it was chapstick.

still life with chapstick

i have chapsticks everywhere.  i prefer to think of it as a preference than an addiction.  it didn't use to be this way.  i think i remember a time when i didn't crave...i mean occasionally apply...much of anything on my lips.  oh, the odd evening of lipstick-wearing or the youthful purchase of bubble-gum flavored lip gloss.  the kind that was like rolling a thick oil slick across your lips.  but chapstick?  really, it's kind of foggy how it all started.

sometimes i can't find it right away and i start to panic.

i started carrying a spare in my satchel because i would, every now and then, leave my chapstick in a pocket and be stranded at work with only my back-up tube of a brand-that-will-remain-nameless and shamed for its reliable tendency to dry my lips out even more regardless of its lofty price tag.  not so the chapstick.  whose application to my lips is infrequent.  unless i am stressed.  or nervous.  or deep in thought.  or stalling for time.  or just plain need some chapstick.

cherry just because i'm bold like that.

i am a plain jane when it comes to chapstick.  i like it straight up, no frills, just the old reliable.  it does the job, and i've been burned by flavored lips in the past.  all those candy- or fruit-scented off-brands just suck the moisture right out of my pucker.

but, then, there was lone pine.  i was running on empty with the chapstick, and we were about halfway through a two-week road trip.  i knew i had to find some, whatever the cost.  and there it was, at the check-out counter of the little main street grocery store in lone pine, california.  but it was pink, not the usual black-and-white tube of my dreams.  well, it was california, and i was feeling bold.  what's wrong with a little pink chapstick?  until i cracked it open (yep, a deep luxurious pink), slid it across my lower lip, and inhaled.  cherries.  and not real cherries.  the scent the scent people have decided will be cherries.  it is a toss-up for me between whether i dislike "grape" flavored things or "cherry" flavored things the most.  (flavor and scent being, as you know, rather interchangeable.)

but there i was, with my cherry chapstick that had, now, become emblematic of a fantastic family road trip.  that was it.  all the goodness of a great vacation packaged in a small pink tube of wax (or, more precisely, of camphor, beeswax, menthol, petrolatum, phenol, vitamin e, aloe, and/or oxybenzone).  i loved that tube of cherry chapstick.  when it, finally, had been used up all the way down to the little white center stick, i resorted to scraping dollops of it out with the nail of my pinky finger - the top of the nail, and then i would deposit it on my lower lip and, in an age-old technique, my lips (through the miracle of more than half a dozen muscles) smash|smear it around until that cherry goodness was evenly distributed between the two.

the insidiousness of routine

hi.

my name is me,

and i

love

~

chapstick.

roofs + roots

Words

what is it about attic windows

that is so much more intriguing

than other windows of a house?

for me, it's the idea.hope.sense that behind

such a window must surely be

things more true than that

which is behind her tall, broad

downstairs sisters,

lights ablaze and bared to all

who care to look.

i, also, love roof lines,

which follow an organic trail against the sky

(and under which attic windows are tucked),

much more than i care about foundations,

that (by necessity, i suppose)

carve a dirt cube from the earth,

regardless of terrain.

with all this upward-gazing,

which lends itself to one becoming lost

in the infinity of sky,

looking down is welcome relief.

a grounding palette of brown and green,

where tree and concrete negotiate,

and roots are proven to be

the stronger

only because they are alive.

Walk

a rambling delight in need of some care

not attic, not roof ~ but i love the shadows and the black window frames

oozing tree

a most beautiful roof

just because they still have Christmas up . . . and it is sparkly

piney porthole

lovely attic window squares & bonus silver disk ornamentation

roots + moss = fairy garden

study on grey

prairie-style gold against a blue sky

escape route

geometric delight

sky-gazing at the church doors

moss-on-stone, plus a shimmering green aurabow*  (*an imaginary word because i can)

deep roots

The End.

art schmart

for the first twenty-odd years of my life, i drew pictures.  mainly people but sometimes floor plans and occasionally trees.  but mostly faces from my imagination.  in my late teens through my early twenties, i took a potpourri of classes ~ a dibble of this, a dabble of that ~ never really settling into any one medium.  this was all a fairly solitary occupation for me.  purely creative, not at all social.  the only class i took with a friend was metalworking.  otherwise, i threw pots, cut and soldered glass, smeared paints, and drew lines with others but completely by myself.  with my peers, i was seen as a writer, and that was definitely an identity of mine in high school.  i was even editor of the school's creative writing journal, the illustrious Winged Words, and churned out free verse like nobody's business.

i've been thinking a bit about creativity recently.

and my own, specifically.

and what happened to it.

between the then and the now.

i conclude that the energy i had focused on art (which was never extreme...it's not like i used every minute of the day to create) has been, for the past two decades, used to grow a marriage and children.  there was very little (and, many years, none) left over for art-making.  i was busy.  and tired.

but it was always simmering.  it's what drove me back to school ten years ago (and, thankfully, what i now get to use almost every day in my professional life).  the need to create something more specific and personal found its way to this blog.  i kind of cringe at the thought that i am a blogger.  frankly....ick.  but there it is.  it was...is...a fairly easy way for me to channel some creative energy in a pleasant way.  to explore creative non-fiction and photography, which are (for me) the easiest and most accessible arts.

which brings me to now.

the day i took my first art class

since 1993.
 

and it was

just right.

i decided to start at the beginning and am taking a 'basic drawing' class.  a way to force myself to draw inanimate objects and remind myself of some techniques.  i feel a bit like the tin man before dorothy found that can of oil.

trunk essentials...jumper cables? check.  shopping bags? check.  massive sketch pad? check.

i will tell you that i was a smidge nervous.  i haven't drawn much at all in between then and now, and i certainly haven't drawn in front of strangers.  or drawn what an instructor told me i had to draw.

i wondered who else would be taking a Saturday morning art class.  there were weekday classes, evening classes.  who gives up half a Saturday for art?

i wondered where i would park downtown.  should i park in the dark deck?  did i have to put money in the meter if i parked on the street?  i zoomed through downtown in my head trying to remember which streets were one-way.

i wondered what to wear.  should i go funky but be preoccupied by my clothing the entire time?  should i go for comfort and warmth but possibly appear, i don't know, completely normal?  (if you know me well, you will know which one i chose.)

i wondered how i was going to endure 2-1/2 hours.  i packed two cheese sticks and a granola bar.

i wondered if i would hate it.

waiting for class to begin.

i chose comfort.  i parked on the street (and stepped gingerly over the opaque frozen stream next to the curb).  i peered at other meters and saw flashing zeros all around.  free!  i practically ran into the art building, like an art-seeking missile, looking for room 127.

torture devices.  (aka still-life props)

next time, i'll know the short cut.  (and i'll park my car in the sun.)  but, inside, into the quiet, dark building; a left, then a right; half-opened doors to other studios; tantalizing glimpses of other art classes; then, room 127!

street-level windows with walking shadows once&again.

the small overlapping circles of life as they are, the instructor (whether she knows it or not) is a friend of friends.  i am no longer surprised.

i drew a box.

still life from my point of view

i loved every minute of it.

taking down Christmas & putting up a New Year

for once, i was as ready as anybody to pack up the vestiges of Christmas & move cleanly into a bright, new year.  often, i engage in the dismantling with reluctance, bargaining about what might be left up just a few more days and what must be returned to the attic eaves prior to the first of january.  but this year, i diligently scoured the house for hastily-placed festive ornaments, which i had tossed up on those random nails a few short weeks ago.  i gathered them like a bird gathers nest-making material - the string, the twigs, the shredded plastic bag or torn junk mail that inevitably floats away from the recycling truck as it barrels down our street every other week.

denuded

Christmas nest-making

scratch-and-sniff

i had left the tree-decorating primarily to our youngest this year, so the tree was filled with his favorites (straw animal ornaments, golden nativity scenes, and sparkly globes).  i did end up hanging my three snowflake angels, and a metal angel always tops the tree.  & i added to my angel collection this Christmas with a find at the antique store near my parents' house.  it is, i believe, identical to the angel in the creche set from my childhood, and i remember loving to curl my fingers around her slim legs and press a finger to each of her open palms.  i like how her wings are tight to her body, as if preparing for flight.

so, we took down Christmas.

and the blankness, cleanness of the house

always inspires me to move tasks

from the to-do list to the done one.

so i put up the suet feeder & was quickly rewarded

 which inspired me to have hubby help me put up

my new birdhouse!

i am oh-so-hopeful that the pair of bluebirds

who came to the feeder yesterday

will find it a perfect place to nest.

in the spirit of the 'done' list

and putting things Up for the new year,

hubby also hung a pretty tile i've had for too long

(i always knew where it would go, just never quite got it there)

 and re-installed a hook i had taken down

when i painted the bathroom

about half a decade ago.

i took it upon myself

to hang up some laundry

to dry in the crisp winter sky.

this is the beginning of winter around here.  we've still autumn leaves to rake, but the chance of a balmy day has likely left us for the next few months.  just now, i am waking up to frost on the grass and curled leaves beneath the ice crystals.  i love the geometry of winter.

isn't it funny how just a slight rearrangement can show you something new?  i've been enjoying this painting ever since i brought it home from an art show nine months ago.  i thought i had absorbed it quite fully, until the light hit it just right last night ~ and i spied not one but three shiny blue stars!  the artist paints under the name Dot Blue, and i am captivated by her patterns and colors.

i spy one...two...

three!...with my bright blue eyes

 i read recently that blue eyes

are such because of their precise structure

rather than anything resembling pigment or color

(they are composed of collagen fibers with no melanin)

and are, by themselves, completely colorless;

as a result of this structure, all light is scattered back out,

creating a blueness

somewhat like the sky.

{ happy New year }