Artists Week Journal

Be Here Now

I was awake at three this morning, finishing, eat, pray, love, the book Susan lent me (thank you, Susan) for this trip, and certainly a good book for Artists Week –for lots of reasons---but when I told Joan and James what I was reading, they both had violent reactions of distaste and disdain. I said, “She writes beautiful sentences.” I didn’t bother to defend the author as being both funny and wise, my favorite combination in people, including both of them.

Anyway, this is one of my favorite passages:

“I keep remembering one of my guru’s teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you’re fortunate enough. But that’s not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings’ (the italics are mine). “And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it…If you don’t, you will leak away your contentment. It’s easy enough to pray when you’re in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments.”

Artists Week Journal

Randomness and Frozen Charlotte

In a desultory conversation the other night, both James and Sid mentioned finding tiny Victorian dolls called “Frozen Charlottes” somewhere in Tuscarora. Lucky finds because the dolls are no bigger than the tip of a finger.

I had never heard of a Frozen Charlotte. Have you? Hooray for Wiki. Hooray for being on line in Tuscarora. After reading about Frozen Charlottes, I know there’s a poem embedded in the tiny emblem and the cautionary tale of female vanity.

My point is that the bit of conversation was itself a shard found on an evening’s verbal rambling. It was a random, lucky find. We’ll see what it turns into.

Artists Week Journal

If You Can’t Sit Still

After dinner the first evening of Artists Week we were in a circle in the yard, still drinking wine and talking. I said, “What do you know for sure?”

Gail said, “Who are you? Oprah?” She’d had her quota of Pound Hound Red by then.

“No,” I said, and repeated the question, “What is one thing you’re certain about? It can be a small thing. I’ll go first. I’ll never own a yellow car.” We went from there, responses ranging from the trivial, like mine, to the touching response of Vivian: “I’ll never let a year go by without being in Tuscarora.”

This morning I am asking myself, “What is the one thing I know for sure about writing?” I have taught composition for over twenty years. I have what seems like a lifelong yearning to be a “real writer.” What do I know for sure?

Writing requires the ability to sit on your butt for extended periods of time and on a regular basis. (Okay, I know Hemingway stood and typed. It’s a metaphorical butt.)

Artists Week Journal

Power Pole Perspective

On my early morning walk down to the turnoff to the Midas Road and back, I was inspired to write this couplet:

Power Pole Perspective

From a red-tailed hawk's point of view

A mouse is more interesting than you.

Artists Week Journal

Truth and Beauty vs. the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

A rousing argument around the dinner table last night about the aesthetics of ugliness. This morning James read me a quote from the book he is reading by painter Agnes Martin: "The sentimentality of my furniture destroys the perfection of my floor."

Artists Week Journal

CAUTION

"I see there is a piece of art here that I hadn't noticed before," James said. He was sitting in front of the shop drinking a cup of tea as I entered the yard from my morning walk. "It's that mud flap." He nodded toward one of the abandoned trucks in the yard. "Look at the elegant serifs on the word "caution" and the way the rubber has aged and crackled." By that time we were both squatting beside the flat tires, admiring the beautiful mudflap. "I think it should go on a wall in the house," he said.

"I agree," I said.

Artists Week Journal

God as Department Store Santa

I am in a department store sitting on Jehovah's lap and he says to me, " So, little lady, what do you want from the next ten years?" I catch his wording. Unfolding my wish list, I see that it is blank. That is one of my greatest fears: that I fritter away the next ten years.