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Lovely sunset the other night.

I finally made it to Asheville to meet up with my surgeon again. Yesterday the neighbor and her sister who kindly took me there in November volunteered to do it again. With great relief the surgery on my lung will happen a week from tomorrow. My doctor and amazing friend will accompany me the day before so I can get tests done at the hospital. then she will spend the night with me there to get me into surgery for pre op very early on Thursday.

After surgery is over, my doctor will go home and I stay for probably five days of recovery there in the hospital. My son will come down to bring me home from the hospital and stay several days while I recover further. The doctor was clear that I should not be by myself for several days after I return home. My neighbor will come and feed the cats while I am away. It was such a wise choice to move here where neighbors are so caring.

The time has been filled with working on more of my dead leaves.

These were the last of the Eucalyptus leaves kept near my dye pot.

And one of the leaves from a neighbor’s tree that blew in near the front door.

Now my paint box could use another good wipe down, but I can’t bear to waste colors I use so often.

And then while listening to audio books written by Elizabeth George (pure English mystery/thrillers) I worked on a couple of pages in the Gathering Book. All inspired by the basket makers of Tasmania getting ready to have an annual meet up.  I decided to draw a bunch of handmade paint brushes of which some were surprise gifts from thoughtful Kent who used to send Lee postcards with hand drawn cartoon characters he made up to amuse him.

I never quite got the point of using these brushes, but many people have made them and then made marks on paper/cloth. It all rather looks the same unless one of them takes the marks further…like detailed drawings among the marks or cutting them all into bits to piece together in cloth or paper quilts. I think it was a fad of sorts to get students freed up to do something, anything, to loosen up. Now making brushes from Nature seems to be a built-in part of workshops in self expression.

Over Christmas I gave away my very large book of the workshop techniques I taught for many years. What I noticed while going through the book for the last time was that there were no “products” among the pages. Only small samples of the effects of the techniques on cloth and or paper. No step by step instructions on how to “make something”. The only reason I shared these samples was to see if there was something about them that spoke to a student looking for a way to express an idea/thought that needed to be realized. These techniques could help give them a way of saying something. Like my own art work, each of these techniques had a story to tell about why it was there and not so much about how it got there. And I am well aware that these stories will be lost in the seductions of “how can I make that?”

I no longer expect to see work where someone gathered soils from a place where something important happened to them and then being turned into a medium to express that happening or memory. There will likely not be much work where a fume-soaked wadding for cleaning guns and purchased at most hardware stores is used to blur images into faded memories or things “lost”. Secrets probably are no longer written on papers easily cut and spun into strings to hold what we want held or woven into vessels and windows of boxes holding even more memories. None of those things fall into the idea of producing things to market in one way or another. But, oh my god, I was so lucky to be around when my stories resonated and became someone else’s in the learning and making.

Here is a good story. Two days ago the young man who installed the blinds in this house came back because I was thinking about using wooden shutters on the lower half of two windows that look out on houses not thirty feet away. He and I pick out the right color wood tone and then stand back and think. I said, “You know this is the only wood shutter there will be in this large space. I am keeping the three windows clear of any obstructions to the view of the Japanese garden out back. this will look odd.” He agreed and told me that he does not fit window treatments into many houses that seem to have planned on how they will look with furnishings and artwork. Implying correctly that I obviously had these things in mind. So then he says, “If the problem is that you don’t like looking out the lower half of these windows and being reminded there is a house so close, then how about this!” And he pulled the shades on each side of the house all the way down. We both agreed it not only was the least expensive idea but the best solution!

So here is the art part of that story. He was staring at a lino-cut that I made of a crow and its nest. He asked where I got it. I said I made it from carving and inking a large linoleum block, then printing it off. He said he had the same one and when I doubted it, he had his wife send a picture and told me where he bought it. Seems he was at a gallery in a town south of here in Georgia and found it there and bought it. Then I remembered I was part of an exhibit there with my large four foot square paintings. I forgot that there was also some original smaller hand pulled prints. He remembered some of the other work and I showed him the large blackbird/gate mixed media piece that I kept and hung in my bedroom to wake up to each morning. He said, “Ah yes! I remember standing in front of this one for some time.” Needless to say I was pleased or “chuffed” as we might say and he was excited to go home and tell his wife he met the artist of a piece they have both kept in their bedroom for several years.

They are predicting snow Friday and Saturday. I am doubtful because most of these predictions seem to be designed to give elderly men something to worry about and concern their wives. Then they can sit about enjoying her soups and cookies that these predictions bring about in fear of not having enough food to get through two days.

I will stay in sunny windows with the cats.

Obviously I have not had a blog in some time, but I wanted to wait til I knew what was coming next in regards to surgery.

Now we know. It may be a while before I get back to it.

Til later…because I have 2,500 more steps to get to my goal of 8,000 today. Chair yoga was good but not many steps there this morning.

Bye…

 

Amy, Patrick and Marla arrived bearing gifts! I was recovering from Covid and Amy’s gift of a large (24″ high by 18″ across) air filter was beyond perfect. If put on high it would clean every particle of air in this open-plan house in half an hour. It sits out of site behind a living room chair and makes no noise at all at half speed.

Patrick’s gift was equally astonishing. A bidet attachment which he plumbed into the toilet Christmas morning. We laughed out loud at the name of this product. AND I love it!

Marla remembered that I requested Tide laundry pods and dishwasher cleaning pods. Now I should not run out for some time.

We had some lovely meals together and played a new card game my doctor showed us Christmas day when she came for dinner. And a new one Amy’s partner, Ben thought we would like called Hues and Cues. You have to give a one, then two word clue for a color on the board without using the color name, then try to get as many as possible to pick close to the color to increase your score. Marla and I using color as artists had the advantage on that game.

I finished a short story and a new leaf drawing.

With Covid I had to cancel the second consultation with my surgeon in Asheville. He will be taking a section of my right lung out because cancer was found there with the x-rays taken when I had pneumonia earlier this summer. I managed to meet the surgeon in November but not after my pulmonary tests to see about qualifying for surgery.  Back to Asheville next week to set a date. I had a lower part of that same lung removed in 2004 and it has grown back. So now a bit off the top.

The good thing is my doctor says I do not necessarily need anyone staying with me after I am released from a few days in recovery in the hospital. I do not want anyone doing that hovering thing.

This morning I went back to the gym and it felt good to be working out and riding the bike.

Amy sorted out where I should be storing my writings on the computer so they don’t disappear one day. And she canceled my $82.99 monthly fee for live Hulu television. I wanted that when I was watching news. Since November 6 I have ignored all news in this pathetic new country. So much more gets done without the distraction of talking heads telling you what you just saw.

So now more writing and more drawing.

All for now…lunch time and more leftovers to look through. But first, last evening and early this morning parking on the corner.

All my Christmas was down and put away before the kids and Marla came to fix breakfast the morning after Christmas. I love putting it all out of sight when it has been up since Thanksgiving. On to new adventures!

Til later

This was my last day at the gym just one week ago. Then off to have coffee in town. I step out of my car to this each morning.

I felt sinus pressure the day after the gym and took recommended meds for it. Then settled down to drawing leaves in a new section of the six way book. Every day more of my dried leaf collection was added. Good thing I save interesting dead leaves because the pickings for fresh are slim outside this time of year. So here they are. Of course the first would be gum leaves.

Then right before heading to Asheville for a doctor appointment this week, I decided to take the home test for Covid. Messaged my doctor, canceled Asheville appointment and decided a good nap would take care of it. No one else I was near seems to have come down with the virus. I will wait until Saturday to test myself again. Amy, Patrick and Marla still plan on coming down for Christmas and will be here Monday evening. I will keep my distance when they are in the house if I still get a positive result Saturday.

In the meantime, I have the best company.

So far I have heard all the audio books that were saved on Libby (the library lending system). Did you know that Agatha Christie could tell an entire story using conversations? Never, he came through the door wearing a green hat. But, “Did you see the green hat he was wearing when he came in.” She rarely has to describe anything, especially feelings. She just lets the characters prattle on until the story is told. Fascinating. So if I was reading her book instead of listening to it, there would be loads of quotes and he said, she saids.

People have been kind to make recommendations but unfortunately they are not available in audio through my library.

So it is back to writing. A new short story is close to being finished. And it is a lovely dreary day for poetry.

Maybe another nap first after a hot cocoa.

Have a wonderful holiday in these times of uncertainty. I still am not watching any news but once in awhile a headline creeps across some of my feeds on Facebook. It does not look good in this new country. But it is what they wanted.

So I will head off to France (my kitchen) for a hot chocolate and join my cats for more naps.

Til later….

The trees are in place. It is the job of Patrick and Marla to set up Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. We had a great meal of Cornish game hens with a brioche dressing, mashed potatoes with leeks and cream cheese, seasoned with rosemary. Roasted carrots with herbs and spices. The dressing, carrots and potatoes were from new recipes we were testing for Christmas dinner. All was delicious. Only failure, total failure, was the dessert of cranberry/ricotta tart. Perfectly awful! So Amy gets the job of dessert for Christmas with her ginger crusted pumpkin pie.

After three days, they were on the road home taking my etching press and screen door I bought and never hung. Now I am planning on closing in the porch. It is too sunny and very, very windy at times making it mostly unusable right when it would be a good idea to sit out there.

Amy and Marla want to do some contact printing with leaves over Christmas. We will have to rely on the flowers at the grocery store but will make a good time of it however and wherever we find plant material. I think I still have a few Eucalyptus leaves from those I ordered a year or so ago. The house will smell wonderful!

So they went home. I went back to the gym in much cooler weather with nice skies.

The cats are loving hanging out near the fireplace.

I have counted up 27 new poems since my poetry book was published…Inner Navigations by S. Webster. So soon I hope to have another book of poems ready to put together. I am also working on another short story. I have missed writing but find with divorcing myself from all news and keeping to a somewhat more reclusive life, my mind has been freed up to just carry on.

The weather has been quite cold and not inviting for walks around the neighborhood. But each lap through all the rooms of the house is 250 steps, so I manage to keep up with getting 8,000 steps per day on weekdays.

Here are two new poems: The first is a rework of the Outback poem written several years ago. Back then it was kept short to fit in an artist book of long landscape illustrations.

The second is from a question Patrick asked: “Have you ever thought of the smell of sadness?”

Outback

 

Alone with my back to a world left behind,

I walk further down the track.

 

Where it will call to me,

deep and distant at first, then nearer.

 

There!

 

Between the hushed whispers of gum leaves

and water trickling down dry riverbeds.

 

Coming from somewhere out there

is the sound of waiting.

 

Layer upon layer of waiting

 

For mail, for rain, for husbands, for doctors,

for children finally coming back home…

 

I move slowly toward its steady

pulsing breath.

 

Just over the rise ahead, down close to the red sand,

the waiting hums in anticipation.

 

I rush forward, only to find

the sound of waiting has moved on.

S. Webster

 

*Note: I so miss that country and remember how these feelings of the outback came to be. It was my first time there in ’97 and my hostess took me on a walk in the outskirts of Canberra. Once you left the suburbs, it was all distance and quiet. I kept asking if we could just keep going further out into the bush to see what more was out there. She politely declined with a warning that following those desires is what causes people to get lost and perhaps not found. She said it was time to turn back. I heeded her warning then, but over the many times finding myself alone in the bush, I did go further…and then a bit further. There is nothing quite like being alone in the outback of Australia.

And here is my response to Patrick’s question….

 

Smell of Sadness

 

It comes from the barn

or somewhere near there.

 

A brief scent that drifts past her

when hanging clothes on the line

or working in the garden.

 

And when it lingers in the air

for too long

she wipes a tear and wonders

 

what must have happened

to cause this smell of sadness.

S. Webster

Back to writing now. It is almost one o’clock and there is plenty of time to lose myself in a fictional life.

Til later….