An imperturbable demeanor comes from perfect patience. Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune and misfortune at their own private pace like a clock during a thunderstorm.—Robert Louis Stevenson
This morning I passed 50,000 words on NaNo. I’ve given up on the plan to stitch ornaments to go in the holiday cards. We stayed home last weekend and I was supposed to be stuffing squashes and making applesauce this afternoon. Instead I spent four hours recreating the emergency manual for our condo because I only had the pdf and could not figure out how to revise it. So the document got another complete edit, which is a good thing, and I sent a brand new pdf off to the man who did most all the original work. And I looked up photos of my classes.
Weaving during the opening of the textile show last month at Cannon Beach Arts Association Gallery. A former student bought the one I am weaving in this photo, thank you, Josh. Gary wants credit for the photo. Thank you, Gary.Continue reading →
NOTE: I should be working on fiction just now, but one of my shawls found a home far away from here, I am reminded of thankfulness, and I’m sharing an assignment I enjoyed doing myself over and over again.
My husband Gary worked in and managed a farmers’ cooperative for over nineteen years. It was a United Grocers store, but as manager he brought in products from many vendors. It’s been twenty-five years since he left that job, but he still has an eye for the way stores are stocked. When I ask him to pick up a particular product, he looks for the UPC number [the barcode] to be certain he gets exactly hat I want. While we were waiting for servicing on our car, I walked into a Hispanic grocery in Hillsboro. Even I knew he would admire the produce. It took some coaxing to convince him “you have to see this” because he wanted to get back to the car. He declared it wonderful. The whole store made him smile.
Kathy in Florida was visiting in Cannon Beach last month and bought this shawl on faith—I had barely begun weaving it in the gallery, but she liked the colors and trusted.Continue reading →
“Janet Sobel (May 31, 1893 – November 11, 1968), born Jennie Olechovsky, was a Ukrainian-born American Abstract Expressionist painter whose career started mid-life, at age forty-five[2] in 1938. Sobel pioneered the drip painting technique that directly influenced Jackson Pollock. She was credited as exhibiting the first instance of all-over painting seen by Clement Greenberg, a notable art critic.”—Wikipedia
When her father was killed in a pogrom, she, with her midwife mother and siblings immigrated to the United States. Here she married quite young, raised five children, and began painting at age 37. In the following years she created a revolutionary way to paint and to approach painting.
Two problems with this. The easy one; I did in fact know Janet Sobel’s name, though I am inclined to misspell it and like generations of students taking Art History in college we never studied a single female painter. The stickier issue is that a someone already wrote this essay.
The day before yesterday, I attended Portland Book Festival 2023. I heard two discussions, toured both floors of booths, talked to a couple of editors, met an interesting woman, and didn’t get very wet in the rain.
1:50am. The power blinked off and back on a few minutes ago. We were already awakened by the gale blowing harsh music through the eaves. It must be November.
We’re wondering about the pelicans. There are a dozen fishing just offshore. In the past twenty years, we’ve often had pelicans around for months. The confusing bit is that it’s November. Pelicans should be long gone by now. There’s something else too.
I have set everything else aside, because November is for writing.
Designing the cover is something I could do before this morning. The other was opening a file where I would begin typing. The title is from the first story I will revise for the collection.
I tend to wake too early, but today I slept more than seven hours after an early night, and was ready to write before six. I was so anxious to begin. Two thousand and some words each day will get me to my goal. Every day for the thirty days of November.
I am ready for October to end. It is my favorite month, most years. My birthday and the shift into wearing sweaters. All good. But this year, October has been too much. Good and bad. Writing, knitting, weaving. An ouch. Overlapping Zoom meetings, three times this month. Busy is great, but I’m getting out of breath.
The light in the recycling room of our condo has been out for three weeks. The management company’s cleaning staff reported the light out, then a neighbor checked and found four other outages. Someone was sent to replace the recycling room light, but it still didn’t turn on. They concluded it was an issue with the ballast. This was discussed ad nauseam during the Zoom HOA meeting last night. In the middle of this, Gary went down and looked. The fluorescent tube was installed incorrectly. He had to come back up to get our ladder to fix it, and they were still talking about it when it was fixed. One Board member sent him a thumbs up in the Chat. You would think…
I recently began another push to improve my health. I ran the Bridge Crossing, which was fun but slower than I expected. I took my blood pressure this week: 140/84. That’s bad, sure, but a month ago it was 151/91. Twenty years ago my BP was 90/60 and had been throughout my younger adult life. My resting heart rate is generally 58-60, and that hasn’t changed. When I’ve asked medical people about why my blood pressure has changed, they only say: Well, BP changes as we age. Bullocks to that.
I’ve been vegetarian with occasional pescatarian lapses for 33 years. I eat organic. I do not eat fast food or ingest sodas or other unhealthy stuff. I’ve kept to the recommended coffee and alcohol servings for a woman.
For the past couple of years my weight has been good with a BMI of about 22.5. I could stand to lose another ten pounds, sure. I have recently cut alcohol consumption to 4 glasses of wine/month and shifted from my one and half cups of Gary’s industrial strength morning coffee to peppermint tea or chai. I run every other day. All good, right? We’ll see about my BP with these most recent changes.
I’ve sold five shawls this month at the local gallery, which is how many I sold in two hours last year at the Night Market (which was cancelled this summer). Not bad, but not great. I did finally find a better way of knotting my fringes that I am particularly pleased about. And another warp is working itself out in my head. I will put it on the loom next week after my loom is home. More purples and blues, I think.
This morning—okay, this is bad—I fell during my run this morning. I landed hard on concrete. Over the years, this is my fourth fall. I generally pop right back up and run on. Not this time. On my left cheekbone. Bashed knees. Slammed fingers. My first thought, before I tried to move and sit up: where am I injured? Hip is not broken—good. Face hurts. Knees hurt. Fingers hurt. I sit up. Swirl, so mild concussion? Two men immediately rush over. Are you okay?Are you okay? I’m okay. White kid on bike and Black construction worker. Do you need a bandaide? I’m fine. I can’t see where I am bleeding (later: little finger, left hand). Another construction worker, in hard hat. Are you okay? As soon as I can, I stand. Not in great shape, face hurts, hand, elbows. Knees stop hurting as soon as I begin to move. Then my shoulder hurts.
I give them credit, they hung on till I was moving.
So. Hands, especially the right one, hurts. I have a lump on my left cheekbone that suggests some color by tomorrow. Gary says I look like someone hit me. No one hit me. It was concrete. That pavement jumped right up and smacked me! Scraped hands and knees without touching my new running tights.
Knitting is painful, but so is typing, yet here I go.
Baby stacks on the shore.
I am now going to eat an entire little carton of raspberry sorbet. Okay, half.
I am not going to share the cover design, but I cannot resist sharing the painting that inspired me. It is the painting that matters:
Woman In The Weeds (2023) by Ruth Hunter
Thank you, Ruth!
Ruth Hunter is a painter in oils and cold wax who lives and works in Portland, Oregon. I first met her and fell for her work in the Waterstone Gallery earlier this year. She has chosen to allow me to use the image above—a generous choice. To me this woman sitting patiently in the weeds is Gena, my primary character in All the Daughters Sing. I love Ruth’s work, from the first one I saw to everything on her website, but this one… pure magic for me.
Go have a look at the work of Ruth Hunter. She has a show coming up next month (November 2023) in the Citron Gallery in Asheville, North Carolina. Wish I were there.
I misplaced my blog, not the blog or the posts (which are only hiding), but the BLOG. I think I have it back. The posts are all still… here. Like this one. I hope. Let me know. Gary is still unable to comment, which is Not A Good Thing.
[UPDATE: Things seem to be where they should be. All good.]
…and this post showed up in my email “Junk” folder. So there’s that.
