floating dreams

                          
Sometimes I have so many day dreams inside my head that never come to fruition, that it is as if my hands are filled with some mysterious water that I can never hold onto. I gush over so many things that I feel almost jostled by loving so much. In all my 36 years, I have not yet found a way to anchor my self expression.

Recently home from a spectacular trip to Merida, Mexico, I got to thinking about just how fast a beautiful moment can pass us by. How do we catch them and make them our own? Beautiful images, the feeling of a temporary breeze, drops of water on a plant, the next business idea, an indescribable color, a rusty wheel...all of these things and more keep my mind constantly moving...but they don't bring me to my ultimate calling. It sounds selfish maybe, to want a true calling...an actualized waking dream, when I already have a well formed life... but i still long for it. I want to wake up with the creative purpose and intentional motion that I was born to do. Is it silk screening and water coloring my prints? Should I open that little store I have been planning for more years than I can count? Am I a resourceful interior designer that people don't even know they want yet?
...Or do I just work at remaining still and embrace my rooted life of loving my family, friends, home and a forty hour work week?

I watch other artists successfully balance the ebb and flow of passionate ideas? But it is as if I am missing the gene that makes me focus on any one thing for more than a few months at a time. So I ask myself these questions as if  I am talking into a cup that goes down into the earth and whose bottom I never find. It's not that I feel sorry for myself for having so much undirected passion and joy all the time, but how do I nail it down into the waking dream? How does the heart of the matter become the everyday work? 

Perhaps the answer, as i have comforted myself all these years, lies in experiencing all the beauty I can find and then letting it run through my fingers to wherever it needs to go next. Maybe my floating dreams are the gift, never to be planted in the ground, but to flow. To just go where they need to go.

i'ts a spring thing...

  Lately, I cannot seem to stop myself from grabbing Hart's camera and wildly snapping away at all the new things popping up in my yard. They are a total and complete surprise because I did not actually plant them.

 As the story goes...the seller who sold me this house was a whimsical and wacky landscaper who seemed to throw seeds up in the air and wait to see what happened next. Of course, this is me coloring the story with a sweetness that was not part of the buying and closing process. The seller and I...let's just say we don't speak.

 However, I feel a strong nurturing urge to pay homage to his green thumb even if only in a blog he will never see. At least I can forgive him in prose and pictures...and believe me I do think forgiveness is the order of this day as I watch the sun blazing on my unbelievable red Japanese maples in the yard.

 I am lucky. I work to pay the bills, yes, and I have an amazing support system which includes my sister sweetly leaving strawberry plants on my porch, But I am blessed with an abundance of good soil, and happy plants and trees of which I am simply a humble onlooker. The magic in my yard moves me especially because I hardly know how to turn on the lawn mower, much less to make a ginkgo tree grow and prosper.

so I thank you, Mr. Gardner, and the sun, moon and stars for granting me the time and space to enjoy my tiny patch of Earth on loan. Who knew watching grapes grow could fill my heart with song and an utter longing to be free and wild just like the child I still am.    
Happy Magnificent Earth day!

x, y, z & ordinary things

Today I just felt like posting something light and breezy, so here is a row of paper flags from my ever growing paper scrap collection. I simply cut out triangles with fancy edged scissors and folded them over the twine with a little glue.  When I walk in my art room I see little miniature kites in a cornflower blue sky.

I also felt like writing a list of 'loves' in celebration of Valentine's week... 

I LOVE:

• when the huge Carolina moon lingers over the hazy indigo mountain tops
• the wondrous amount of love that circulates through my life 
• the moment when the perfect paint color reveals itself
• the stunning acoustic guitar music in the world
• looking forward to a long awaited trip to the ruins in Mexico
• the day after a great yoga class
• a simple walk home with a friend
• when you know you have helped soothe someone with your words
• quietude, grace and gratefulness
• the beauty in ordinary things

winter green

*all photos taken by me :) unless otherwise noted

Not to seem crabby, (even though my astrological sign is Cancer) but I usually find it extremely hard to feel 'sunny' in Winter. I get inspired for a few hours here and there, like when the house is clean, or when Hart is making me laugh hysterically and sweetly...but overall, I am a creature of Spring and Summer. Give me color or give me sleep! So this year I am honing my skills towards loving what is winter. I must admit, the hidden gem that I have found this Winter is time. I have more quiet pockets of time because I am not out chasing the day for yard sales, social events or daily hikes. Instead I find myself curling up with the early darkness and letting myself feel its natural limitations. We are supposed to slow down and feel the inward hush; or at least feel more cozy.  I feel lucky to have finally found this piece of the puzzle. Winter beauty. Winter quiet. Winter green.