A Very Blowy Day

The other morning it was misty when we did our morning walk on the trail. Then two days of rain so no walk. The leaves are mostly down today due to tropical storm Zeta coming through.

And I have four days of drawings to show. I really hated doing the scissors…too technical but loved the thread and scraps of cloth.

These cat claw clippers

are as hard to draw as they

are to use on cats.

 

My handy scissors

for snipping threads, bits of cloth

to keep on stitching.

 

Embroidery floss

and snipped pieces of fabrics

wait for a needle.

 

Some fringy fabrics

of neutrally colored cloth

are very useful.

 

Some more journal entries…..

 

Isn’t it odd how you have to find that one thing that was there before so you know that you are where you wanted to be? And then I draw it again…it is recorded…my presence is noted….I can bring it home…I can remember. Mary gave me this bowl she made of layers of papers. She was such a good find in Australia…a older woman from the UK who I traded my unknown Australian room mate for, just because she might be interesting. We became fast friends and spent time traveling together whenever we could. We laughed all the time we were together and when we last saw each other, she said, “The problem is Sandy, we didn’t meet soon enough.”  We had so many more stories to tell each other, but I am very grateful for the time we did have and the craziness we shared. Her bowl sits in the studio full of Eucalyptus leaves. I think she still reads my blog, so “Hello, dear friend….remember when we…..”

And some journal notes……because our fifty-third anniversary was just two days ago and was thankfully not given any attention.

 

October 27, 2003  36th anniversary alone in Townsville, Queensland.

I am on the Pacific coast of Australia and settled into my accommodation. Visited the art gallery and shopped. Found this one and only micro brewery nearby and ordered a grilled barramundi dinner. The young girl at the tap insisted I try the red as well as the stout – a full pint (schlepping those suitcases can only be rewarded one way). The bar keeper (young man) has brought me the beer. “Happy Anniversary” he says. This is a perk for lone traveling women with a conversational bent. I told him I just picked up an email from my husband telling me to go out and have a beer.

It has just occurred to me this morning in Mackay and now Townsville that most average Australians seem to have a Jimmy Buffet ambience – shorts, thongs and an easy goingness that used to be more apparent in the States. We seem “tense” by comparison. Now, post 9/11 we have lost the ease, or did it go before that? Did it go when we became concerned about secure futures and monetary gains? I do know this, when I get home, I am going to relax – take on the mental adjustment and notch it down. “No Worries” as they say here.

The boy who brought my beer is on the hunt for something salty to finish it off….a micro brew with just fine food and no snack or appetizer menu….a good boy to go looking. I may ask if I can take a bottle with me to have tomorrow after class and then peel the label.

I need a watch – have lost all track of time – just going by the sun now and it is still up. He has not returned and I probably need to move towards a take away for another day.

 

And those scraps of cloth ……. a finished coyote.

Til later.