wood/freewrite #14

the smell of fresh cut wood makes me anicipate a new project.  i love the look of raw wood, sanded smoothe and naturally colored by its own unique patterns.  wooden surfaces, highly polished; oak and ebony and koa.
now in this room old wood is juxtaposed against pressed board.  cedar, dark cherry; old pieces stained by time.
sunlight dances over parquet floors in late afternoon.  i love that sight.

freewrite 13/ tin foil

such a magical substance..tin foil molded into shapes for little sculptures.
shiny, reflective.
i remember the first time i discovered tin foil eating lunch in the auditorium at ps104.someone 's sandwich was wrapped in this magic...my own in waxed paper, dull and formless, so unlike that silver ball . i could spend hours smoothing it with my fingers.

freewrite # 12 /a long one on Letters.

one third of my clutter consists of letters folded in large cardboard boxes.  preserved.
the past made holy.
most of the letters are from barbara.  long winding words with multiple dates.  the letters multiplied with the years'
the addresses changed but not the love.

how did we have so much to say?  how did i ever write those fat letters when its agony now to freewrite for 20 minutes.

letters with stories we've half forgotten or only knew from one another's pages.

love letters tied with a ribbon-only mine aren't. they live in the same boxes...
the sensual letters of kenny with the green eyes; the ramblings of tony illustrated in pen and ink and often collaged.
dean's list letters and acceptance letters all nuzzle together;the years all random...1973 mixed with 1990.

the pen dries up. so do the words.  i've already said all i'll ever say.

boxes of the treasured letters line my hallway.  i open them sometimes and bathe in their love.
you have to miss someone a lot to write letters...it was work even in the 70's.

Cinnamon buns at the mall
cinnamon sticks gathered in plaid ribbon for christmas decorations.

how many secrets
whispered over cinnamon tea
pungent and sweet with honey.

the best colors...that transparent golden hue
and the opaque rusty shade of cinnamon.

i am wanting a cinnamon bun now.
rich and sweet and chewy.
mmmmmm.

freewrite on moonlight

my favorite is a big fat moon and the abundant light it brings.
light like i can never capture in my work.
shimmering silver in deep indigo
soft viel on the night.

a year with sapphire

 

freewrite #9 doorways

doors leading to more doors.
these passegeways i paint repeatedly.
thresholds of stone, arched and polished,
images from dreams.
some doors are wood and glass like in the carriage house
some are cold steel ugly like my own front door now.
doors being slammed shut and locked and bolted like some people.

other times i had the wide french doors, always open.

bottles

it's almost impossible for me to think of bottles and NOT think of judy gregg, my potter friend. she made long, slender vessels glazed with lavender and light blue.

liquids residing in glass bottles,colored like stained glass-transparent and bewitching.

The bottles placed on the white display pedestals.

bottles hold secrets and nourishment and flowers set on a round oak table, and fragrances...fluid blues in decorative bottles, like the ice colored glazes judy would use.

rain freewrite #7

i listen to the sound of rain on the window, editing the street sounds with a slow, deliberate rhythmn.

the rain makes my back hurt and my spirit sing. simultaneously. nourishing and flooding; the two extremes  of these
fragrant "tears from heaven"

rain on the windshield of a car (will i EVER drive again?)

a droplet slides down  the glass and merges with  another drop

walking in the rain with a loved one....another cliche...
wet kisses beneath the wide spread branches of a scyamore tree.

memories/freewrite #6

gliding down memory lane
where everything is better. 
i can't think of any memory i'd want to share.
decades later,the lryics of songs tug at the heart;
a face, a fragrance.
too hard to do , this act of remembering.
like the books i've read and not remembered
till the end; like my own stories, told too often now.
memories, a word i have to force myself to return to
to keep myself from revisiting the past.

boxes 5/365

small white porcelain boxes, nesting one inside the other open like dates on a calender; those boxes we fill with our sweet nothings.
boxes containing gifts, gaily wrapped or brown and big like appliances or the boxes we paint ourselves into; those corners of nothingness.
the box for the stash or the jeweled memories, or the dreams you can't quite remember.

lunch boxes and litter boxes and round and silver hat boxes like that series of art boxes i keep meaning to finish.

freewrite number 4

barb and i have decided to do a 10 minute freewrite every day for a year.  for those of you who don't know, a freewrite is a kind of automatic writing, where you simply write, without thought to grammar, punctuation or content. this is an exercise in creativity, tho i have no idea how that actually works.
anyway, today's topic  is trees.

          looking out the window at treetops and rooftops of other people's homes.  green and leafy cliches against the landscape of chimney. green leaves bursting on the monotone scene .
          then there are the trees i've stood against or hugged or sat beneath like quentin's pepper tree in chula vista.
          trees are best in autumn; leaves of vermilion and burgundy; glorious in their dresses of color.

          trees old and strong, twisted with age, contorted; leaning over like old men  or young and budding like the tree we planted so many years ago, right beyond the french doors.  for privacy.  for the sweet green of leaves and the crooked, twisting bark.

buildings

barbara and i did another freewrite.  i eeked out a couple of sentences.

strong, sturdy; concrete and glass straining towards the sky.
i used to paint buildings when i lived on the west coast and was missing the east.
perhaps painting is to reminisce after all.

michelle

here's a picture of my favorite little girl on the day of her first communion.  the picture was taken in the gazebo at cannonball park.

flowers

Barbara and i did a freewrite today on the subject of flowers.  here is my silliness.

flowers

i can barely recall the scent of flowers, blooming in a vase, in sunshine
or blooming in the garden. a trellis of morning glories-light purple and blue,

climbing. trumpets of the day; lillies surrounding the walkways...

this blog is beginning to read like an obituary column . once again i'm here to record the death of another person who touched my life. this time it was a personal friend who let go of the flesh and embraced the light. at least that's how i'd like to imagine his passing.
collier and i ate dumplings and played chess together and were opponents off the board as well, sometimes. he had many ,many secrets......very few he shared with me.
he brought me pastries and once, a tube of paint. it was metalic gold.

rest well, collier

bella's birthday