Thursday, April 29, 2010

Afternoon Rainbow at Scudder Pond






















Thanks to Rebecca for this about listening and being heard.

Friday, April 23, 2010

La flor es mi profesor






















It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
(Albert Einstein)

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

All things must pass and love is the bridge.

















When Richard returned from Vietnam in 1970, he bought me a copy of "All Things Must Pass" for Christmas. When George Harrison died, it was Richard who called me with the news. Richard died on April 20, 2008. I lit a candle for him this morning.

"But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."
(Thornton Wilder)

(Photo of note from Richard from the VA Hospital in January 2008)

Monday, April 19, 2010

View from my drawing table






















Listen.

It's shocking how time has changed since I started working again. I've never regretted going down to Hammond.

"My heart is not heavy. It's light and it's free."
(Bob Dylan)

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Oboe noticed the swallows before I did.

Listen.






















This morning around 8 o'clock, I was checking my email and noticed that Oboe was reaching for something on the side of my drawing table. It took me a second or two to realize that she was trying to catch the shadows of swallows in flight. It was just yesterday that I had seen photos of swallows at Loren's blog and wondered when the swallows would be arriving here at Scudder Pond.

Friday, April 16, 2010

In this case it was a crow.

Listen.

















Now that I've been employed again for a little over a month and not feeling so overwhelmed, I've been thinking that I would like to draw during some of my now very limited time. This morning I drove down to Bellingham Bay with the thought of sitting inside at Woods Coffee with my de-caf and drawing something from what I dreamed last night. I parked my car and started to walk over to Woods Coffee. Then I heard this (scroll down to the "Rapid series of caws.")

The crow was a little more than a yard above me in a pine tree. The crow looked at me but didn't fly away. I watched the crow bob and caw as crows do and then got out my small notepad that I had intended to draw on and did some quick contour drawings of the obliging crow. As I concentrated on the crow's posturing, I heard a man's voice saying, "Looks like you have a friend." I turned around to find a man and a woman smiling at me and the crow. The crow remained close for a little while longer and then flew away. Sitting on a tall stool at the window table in Woods Coffee, I drew this with my 6B pencil:

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Pier meets voyage






















"Mama she raised me to sing and just let them talk."
(Jakob Dylan, lyrics from Nothing but the Whole Wide World -- this is Sofi's version).

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

April 14, 2010






















The first time I ever heard John Prine singing must have been 1974 on Austin City Limits. It was while I was doing dishes in the kitchen. My boyfriend was watching television in living room of the dilapidated rental house we lived in. I was lost in negative thoughts. That wasn't a very good time in my life. I'd made some serious mistakes and couldn't figure out how to remedy them. At first I thought I was hearing Bob Dylan singing, so I ran into the living room, expecting to see Bob Dylan. Nope. It was John Prine.

He didn't sound like Bob Dylan. He sounded like John Prine. It was a happy moment. I wasn't one of those from my generation who had had positive experiences with Illegal Smiles but I loved him and his music otherwise. Still do.

Listen.

Monday, April 12, 2010

"I Held Hands With The Forest Floor"





















Listen.

("The Forest Floor" is from a series of paintings done by Richard while he was in the stroke rehab unit at the Palo Alto VA Hospital between September 2007 and March 21, 2008. He came to be known as "The Artist" on that unit. I said goodbye to him on April 13, 2008, in the Medical Intensive Care Unit. I had traveled from Washington so that I could spend time with him for the previous 4 days. Because of his brainstem stroke in September, he was unable to speak. He would indicate "yes" or "no" by giving the thumbs up or thumbs down sign. The last thing he said to me was "yes" when I asked if he would like me to read my message on a card that I had sent to him in March and which had just arrived in his M.I.C.U. room. During those 4 days, he indicated to his doctor and his sister that he wished to be taken off of life support. We needed to say goodbye. His doctor said that he had waited for me to come and say goodbye. He slipped into a coma on April 14, 2008, and died on April 20, 2008, with his sister and her Vietnam veteran boyfriend and Chaplain Virginia Jackson at his bedside.)



















(1950, 1965, 1987)









"There is no situation too difficult to be bettered and no unhappiness too great to be lessened."
(from Opening our Hearts, Transforming our Losses)

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Healing Thread






















The Way It Is
by William Stafford

There's a thread that you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn't change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can't get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time's unfolding.
You don't ever let go of the thread.

(Appleworks paint program trackpad drawing from 2005 by am)

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Further On Up The Road






















Eternal thanks to Rae for telling me about PeaceTrees and being a good friend for all these years.

Listen.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Street Legal / 7:25 a.m. and 8:35 a.m.

















...Peace will come
With tranquility and splendor on the wheels of fire...
(Bob Dylan, age 37, lyrics from "Changing of the Guards," from the album titled STREET LEGAL)

Listen.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Man Looking Up at Geese

This morning, while I was trying to photograph the spring snow in the distant foothills,

















a pair of Canada Geese flew into the viewer space.














If your mind shifts the way my mind did, you might see the geese as a pair of eyes looking up, as if the person in my linocut from 1979 were to turn his head toward us as he looked up.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Easter morning 2010

















42 years ago.

An elderly Jewish friend of mine said in the year she died, "I don't have to be Christian to be moved by the life and death of Jesus."

...I keep traveling around the bend
There was no beginning, there is no end
It wasn't born and never dies
There are no edges, there is no sides...
(George Harrison, from "Any Road")

Listen.
Listen.
Listen.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Hail / Rain / Early April Morning

















...Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail...
(Bob Dylan, age 23)

Listen.

I love the rain!
(A early grade school girl speaking to her mother -- overheard in the grocery store parking lot this morning)

This is my 801st blog post.
(am)

Friday, April 2, 2010

Thursday, April 1, 2010