in the grip 3:56am, sweatered on the couch with the green blanket tucked around my legs. I can’t see them, but I am aware physically and psychologically that I have good, warm slippers on my feet, and that they are a deep, warm pink. In a moment I will pull the reliable stapler out of my purse, turn on the living room light, clear all available surfaces and begin the process of sorting through the year’s worth of collected paper that represent what I spent and what I earned. I might also ask the furnace for more heat. art history: a painting I did in 1994, stripped of all but the figure. Symbols added at an art opening in 2014 by people who signed up online and / or came to the event. The third image is further work on the piece, which becomes more Chagall-like every time I go into it. Everything about Chagall – his thinking and his work – have charmed me since I studied him at uni 30 years ago. The piece needs to be re-stretched and finished, but it is the first of many rich and random acts of art. Who knows when that show will be – 20 years from now? I look forward to it. How many truths can we hold I wonder. These bits of paper represent a year of deep shifts – a marriage ended; a career dusted off and re-worked; a daughter away for months on the other side of the planet then back home; a studio; a cat; a rented house; another Macbook Pro, brakes and tires on a red car; groceries, groceries… the long long, slow process of changing my mind about me in the world. They’re still in grocery bags, the receipts, the invoices, the bills, because I resist this story, this truth. I don’t want to look, don’t want to add the numbers, don’t want to know in concrete terms what I already know – it’s been a very tough year financially. I look around me at the times we are all in, the 99% of us, as the old industrial-think global economy shows it’s fault-lines ever more clearly, and I know it’s been tough for so many. This is not comforting, but it helps. I don’t feel anything like a victim, but I do see that the idea of security that we were raised with is largely an illusion. I believe we need to think differently now, about what we actually need, how we serve, and how we earn our keep. my studio is on the top floor of this building – three windows north, three east. This picture shows the building’s transformation from the Pacific Hotel into the Circle Bar Hosiery Factory circa 1927 (black blob at the top is a tree close to the camera, not a fire). My mother’s grandfather, Walter Keebler, was the industrialist who envisioned this change. At one point Circle Bar employed over 200 women. It was still going strong into the late 1950s. Clever me – I have succeeded in an hour’s worth of diversion – it is 4:49am, and the lights are still dim. It is time now to make the second cup of coffee – the one that will fuel my industrious sorting project. I need one more moment of listening though, before I rise to do this. Into the stillness and perfect peace of early morning I am aware that someone I love dearly is far away and in pain. The answer in me is quiet and deep; I don’t know how to connect with her, I feel helpless. This is another truth to hold, another story to hear and navigate, then repeat. There is great love here, and beauty, but also fathoms of old sorrow. I would so love to be there with her, in this moment. view from my studio window, winter 2014 Alright. Time to put the kettle on.
Sun This morning’s coffee is warm and it tastes like sunlight. Arctic air outside blows chimney exhaust north over the rooftops, the morning sun breathes it golden. March after a months of white skies filled with snowflakes is air that can freeze your nostrils together lit by sun that wakes your roots. I’m in love with the contrast of this. I feel like I could start to extend my hands and feet by one knuckle at this point. Maybe even work on a pair of wings. Actually, um… Pic by Vita Cooper, friend and artist. 12 street from the river, where I spend most of my time….
Inside Winter It’s the kind of snow there’s a constant More of. The plows and trucks and blowers, out all night long are still going strong at 10am. Cars slide gently sideways to stop signs. Kids and grown-ups both are thoroughly snow-suited, booted, winter-gloved and touqued as they kick & trudge through piled white, falling white, blowing – white everywhere. Dogs leap and dive in it; parked cars have long since disappeared, save for a stripe of colour along their sides. Third-floor roof of the studio building. Looking Southwest across the harbour The coffee tastes better. The blankets are warmer. The books are more intriguing; the art more tantalizing now that there’s time to look deeply. The music has such clean white space around it, it’s almost visible. I’ve dug out my knitting projects. I find myself puttering, replacing buttons, fixing collars, darning holes in old sweaters. Just heard the opening phrase of a new song: 3 cello voices, descending, one rising, to A minor; hold. Then vocals… I’ve said this before, but it’s true enough to say twice: I love what winter does to me.