The Days of Day

My challenge yesterday was to just START. I did it. I dropped Marcus off at preschool, walked in the front door, poured out some paper pulp into a bowl, stirred in some warm water and got busy. I squished and mixed until the mush felt just right. I made SIX birds for my in-progress Disco Birds (more on that later) and then stood back and looked in awe at these wet birds that are already oozing with personality -- um, bird-onality. As usual, just starting worked. To me, that's the funny part. It works almost every single time... if I just get started, the inspiration flows and YET nearly every single time I have more ideas than spark I doubt the process. I guess it's akin to losing faith for a day or two. Which brings me to explaining my religion -- well part of it anyway. WHAT? From papier mache to God in one tiny step? Well, I have to start somewhere and wet birds are as a good a place as any. Those wet and mushy birds symbolize what I think the Spirit is. It...

You wouldn't think a person would find excuses to NOT do the one thing they actually WANT to do. You'd think they'd do it first and leave the dog hair on the floor for another day. You'd think they'd race home from taking their little guy to preschool, rush in the door, and get to work, leaving the e-mails to return maybe... never. You'd think... All week long, I've woken up in the morning thinking, "This is MY day to make stuff. I'm going to do the laundry BEFORE I take the boys to school. I'm going to make lunch, even, and put it in a picnic bag so I don't have to even do that later." But then, I drop off Marcus and come home... First, I think, I need to clear the decks so my mind is as fresh as that blank paper down in my studio. I need to return a phone call, arrange a new day for gymnastics class, create a menu for the week, drop by Home Goods, read that book that's due to the library, and run to the post office. Sudde...

Yesterday I listened to NPR for entirely too long. Expert after expert had opinion after opinion about ISSUES (read that with a deep, serious voice). Arizona had increased the power of the police force to punish hungry immigrants for daring to try to be hungry in our country. I get it. How can we pay for everyone? OFFICIALS (again... deep voice) were battling with how to punish banks, but not so much that they refused to give us money. PUNDITS were talking about LAWMAKERS who were trying to put a tighter harness on coal companies... but not too tight because of, you know, JOBS. Everybody's got their feet on the soapbox and hand in the air, waving it around imperiously. Everybody's wearing suits and sensible, but very expensive, shoes. Everybody's got a microphone and a shovel. The microphone is to make sure their words are recorded for everyone to hear. The shovel is to keep the crap off their own feet. This picture is of my youngest one-day-man at the Theodore R...

Today, I opened a brown box sent by my mom. As usual, the box was chock full of special things -- prints by an artist who speaks my color language, a mexican papier mache bird, some Texas-y grocery bags ... and Candy Lou. She weighs heavy in all the right places like a real baby. Her clothes are faded and her face is well-kissed. She's not too floppy, more like a lovey with a back-bone. Her hat, though, is fall-in-your-face type of hat... but I think that's just because she loves it too much to take it off and fix it up a little. She's one of those girls who doesn't think she's pretty, but she knows darn-tootin' that she is "Beee-you-tee-ful, Sister!" She's crying out for some glittery, beady angel wings. I think they might be silver and blue with some paint splattered around on them. She thinks her very favorite wings would be those she could buy at a thrift store, but she's really too inexperienced to know that angel ...

Day Two -- What I Hear I've promised myself to just write ONE sentence per day. That can't be hard. Right? It's funny, reading blogs you hear only the words of the writer. What you don't hear reading these words is the incredible noise behind me as my own two sons join forces with the neighbor boy to play a game that includes words like bam and torpedo and head shot and armor . Yesterday it was easy to become enamored with the idea of sitting in silence reflecting on novel thoughts or important ideas. Boys were shouting outside in the sunshine instead of inside, avoiding the rain, being clean, dry soldiers. Yesterday I didn't have PMS or cramps or jangly nerves from noise and long lists and clock arms that fly instead of creep. What do I have today? Today I have a picture of a perfectly round steel ball, brushed and polished, symmetrical -- round and yet firmly balanced. It looks so firm and perfect, cold to the eye and warm to the touch. The phot...

Today is the first day of my blog. I feel like I used to feel when I'd buy a new, blank journal... a sense of dedication and commitment to filling every single page, every single day with ideas that would one day sound profound and illuminating. I used to open those blank books and imagine my life as the sort of life where at the same time every single day I'd harness my self-discipline and sit and write and record. I've never been that person, though. Maybe the excitement I felt at the prospect of being that regular about my writing was really excitement about maybe discovering a new part of myself, a part of myself that was about structure and order and predictability. I felt hope that she was in there somewhere. And then... a few months later, I'd uncover that journal, about fifteen pages written in, the rest of those blank, unfulfilled pages stuffed in a drawer somewhere. I'd feel sad, wondering what had happened on all those days I didn't record. I...