Here 2 Indiana

Monday, December 15, 2008

I used to write my thoughts in sketchbooks. Not everyday, but often. I liked using sketchbooks because if I suddenly found my thoughts could best be expressed in a picture, the media was already in my hands. Not so when the sketching goes online. True, my phone puts the writing and posting of photos in my constantly twitching fingers, but suddenly my little sketches have fallen by the wayside. I wonder if I have forgotten how to draw completely. Even my words have lost their spontaneity as I struggle to type out letters and compose for a possibly instant audience. (I know this sounded better when I was brushing my teeth.) There is also the oppressive need (when typing) to both spell correctly and to finish sentences.
I bring this up as I pack a lifetime of sketchbooks to move into yet another home. I delight to look through them. The drawings, doodles, pasted in extras enchant me still. I am not 30 when I read them over. I can't even look at them as a teacher ("how do these pictures function? What kind of composition is this?") but in the head of the woman I was then.
I was always buying new books too-- whether I forgot to bring one when needed or I found a beautiful new one. Hence, they are not in chronological order, and I shudder to think what a mess I will leave when I am gone.
This has a point. It did when I was brushing my teeth. I miss writing, brainstorming images. But it feels so childish now. (Do I have to let that go too?)

Sent from my iPhone

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Holidays

A few weeks ago, I was so tired, so homesick, so plain-old-sick, that I bought my plane ticket to California much earlier in my schedule than I should have. I depart in a mere six days, with projects to grade, boxes to pack, pets to arrange for sitting, shows to dismantle... Home is such an alluring concept, as is the romanticized notion of it being a place you can return to, rather than you take with you (whether you like it or not).

Ice has been forming on the windows. It makes straight lines, like the frozen tracks of winter foot-racers. It glistens on the blue mornings, the ones when I love it here. Last weekend, we woke three days in a row to fresh, perfect blankets of clean, white snow, gently covering everything I could see from my hallway window (including the apartment I will soon move into). I could see it from the bed, and before I looked, I knew from the laughter the neighbor's children had already made a snowman in the yard. (Have I found a Norman Rockwell winter?) As quickly as it came, one warm evening and rain storm later, it was gone, the sky was back to gray, the ground muddy and cold.

We have made many fires in the wood stove (while we still can), but moving and leaving for most of the holiday leaves me glum... my favorite thing to do this time of year, whether for only a week or a month, is to open the boxes of Christmas decorations and fling their contents around the house, marvel at the toys for adults, their bright colors and optimistic outlooks, and only put them away when their kitsch has worn thin. I think I will have to have a special equinox festival this coming year, so I will not miss out on my favorite time. Christmas in March it is!

P.S. I finally added more images to Flickr. Enjoy!