Well, I think it may have happened. My brother is sleeping on the bed in my living room. I hate to see it, but you know, he's my baby brother, after all. There's worse places for him to be. No further comments. We'll get all that sorted out later.So....
A lot has changed in the last few weeks. I cannot get my head around the fact that in two months (less than two months, really) I will be leaving the area, hopefully for good. I will miss all these people around here, the hills and secretive hideaways that have been, for so many years, my home, but the time has come for something new. I'm moving in with Cody, starting school, and leaving behind me this job and life that I've been living, in exchange for something new. Bully for me.
On a lighter note, I've been sewing more and more here lately. Examples include:
Now, I know that I'm the world's worst when it comes to procrastination. But I'm going to try to get better about posting blog entries, writing about the twists and turns my life is taking, and, once I get moved in in Little Rock, getting my handsome boyfriend to do a fashion shoot for me. I've been stenciling and making t-shirts like a man possessed, and the only reason I am not currently sewing a creature is that I have run out of the little plastic beads that I use for weighting their feet. Yesterday I did a painting, and it seems like wherever I turn, I'm finding inspiration.
For as long as I can remember, I've been doing this. Ideas, slippery little things that they are, come and go, and I am increasingly eager to catch them. I credit Chris for this, and it's on this point I must digress for a moment.
Last week, I had a dream. I wound my way to a dead woman's house, somewhere way out in the sticks, and found a low-roofed mobile home filled with boxes. I started digging, when all of a sudden, I felt a presence behind me. I whirled around, and found myself face to face with an old lady, dressed in white with a huge grin on her face. She held up her hand, then began rummaging through the boxes. She knew what she was looking for.
Suddenly, she stood up, holding out a white skirt. It was short, about mid-thigh length, with a high waist and crisp pleats. She let me look at it, then snatched it away again, writing on the back of it with long, scrawling strokes. She gave it back, then took me by the shoulders and smiled. Her eyes were radiant, the brightest blue I'd ever seen. She vanished.
The next day (or maybe the day after, I can't remember), my mother came in to see me at work, and she had a little wooden box.
"Miss Nancy's been going through the stuff at her friend's apartment," she said, pushing it across the counter. Nancy is her neighbor. Nancy's friend, Chris, was in assisted living, and died a couple of weeks ago. I didn't know what to expect, only that I was getting a gift from a dead woman. The box had a palette, palette knives, paintbrushes, turpentine, and a little clip-on bowl for putting turpentine on the side of the palette. At this point, I had no inkling of doing any painting. My gesso has sat in my cupboard for well over eight months, and I have never experimented with oils. But, a sign is a sign, and lo, I sat down yesterday and did a project. I have never had so much fun with paint. So Chris, wherever you are, my dear, I say thanks, and more thanks.~namaste
