Creating with Sticks

Creating with Sticks 

            We are always creating the world around us. Starting in the morning with the first cup of coffee or tea to get one’s self going before facing the day.  I am a laggard in this process.  Oh, I start off well with great ideas of doing this or that, working on such and such but somehow in the very act of living my day to day I get lost.  Weekends seem to be the best time for me as I get worn down from my work week and somehow my little brain has a tendency to shut down once I get home. 

            I remember the time that both my husband and I came home, threw off our coats and shoes and headed for the couch.  I spooned behind him with my back snug against the cushions of our brown plaid couch. We slept. When we woke up, we had been joined by our big black cat Puck who had found that his mother snuggled behind his father made a perfect little niche for sleeping in so he had positioned himself in the comfort of our warm bodies.

            There was no great creativity going on that night as we stumbled from the couch into the kitchen with bleary eyes and minds that were not functioning on all burners. My husband opened a cupboard door, pulled out a can of baked beans.  We opened them up, ate them cold and then after brushing our teeth crawled into bed. 

            I have started a new project with the help of my mom-in-law.  I have decided to learn how to knit the lovely scarf pattern that she uses so much for most of my winter scarves.  I have an idea to knit a scarf or two for some of my dear friends for the season.  If you are one of them reading this blog, don’t get your heart set on a new scarf quite yet.  I have ripped it out three times so far.  As my mom-in-law said to me. ”Oh, you don’t have time for that.” I am still hopeful to at least get my scarf completed before the month is out.  We will see.

            As always, when working on an idea for a blog, I try and take my camera everywhere I go just in case I find an opportunity for a quick picture that might work.  It saves me having regrets later as I mourned a lost moment because my camera was left sitting on the table or on the counter at home.  When we went to eat at our favorite spot, the restaurant Café Mundo, I found that I was indeed happy that the camera was with me.  Sitting at a table next to us was a group of five women who were busy with their various projects, knitting, stitching in their laps.  I have long gotten past being shy about asking for things, it can happen but unless you ask? Well, I explained to the women that I write a blog and would like to take a picture.  I told them that I don’t do faces because I like to keep things private but that I would like to take a picture of the table for an idea that I was working on. Thankfully, they consented and I worked on a few shots.

            One of the women shared that they had been sitting working at another table one day and a man came up and commented that it was surprising to see them not sitting and texting as most people seem to do now days.  I agree with him.  I am with an age group that when you are with someone, you are with someone. You look at them, you listen to them and when you have an idea or comment you share with them.  You might think of that as creativity. I do. Whenever I open my mouth to comment, share or voice something that is going on in my mind, I have created a moment that can never be changed, never taken back but probably with the space of time passing, I will forget the details, the nuances, and the great attraction that held my mind at the time.

            I hope to remember so that I can draw a more crooked line, color outside the edge of a drawing, and really taste the food that I am eating which is passing into  a new stage of creation in my body.  But now I can only hope that somehow creating with sticks will get me a nice warm scarf before the cold winds come.

            

From Summer to Winter

From Summer to Winter  

            I had an idea for one of my blog regarding taking pictures of my blue hat with the pink purse hanging on the back of various doors in my travels somewhere along the lines of the bathrooms that I have been in, behind closed doors, waiting in line, afraid to sneeze, and I think that I drank too much tea. 

            Today as I was in another of the little rooms, I found my little mind wandering after I had taken care of business.  It occurred to me as I sat draining all of the tea of the morning letting it tinkle into the pristine white bowl that suddenly, quite suddenly, the weather had changed from summer to winter over the span of a few days.  Ordinary, it creeps up on us with a different scent in the morning air, with leaves falling, pumpkins growing deep orange in the fields while fields of cornstalks start to turn brown.

            For me, this morning, it was my black winter raincoat hanging on the hook of the stall that I was in with the pink purse hanging with it.  It was an “ah” moment. After putting myself back together. I put the lid down on the toilet, unzipped my purse and pulled out my camera. Well, so much for inspiration as I backed myself into the corner of the stall, hoping that no one was next to mine wondering why my feet were so close to the back wall as I struggled to get the right angle, the complete picture of both the black coat and the pink purse.  I did worry about how I was going to straddle the toilet hampered as I was with a very small closed space, fortunately, I was able to achieve what I needed. 

            When I shared my adventures with my husband and mother-in-law as we sat waiting for a table at a local restaurant, she remarked that I was a strange one but after thirty-five years of knowing me it did not really surprise her too much.  After all, I am still packing out our bathwater to water my poor water starved trees and bushes under the drought conditions that we are experiencing.

            This morning I was awoken by a drip, drip of moisture going down a drainpipe outside of my bedroom window.  No, it did not rain and the drought is not over so I will be packing the bathwater out to water the roses this morning. Fortunately for us, we get the mist from the ocean air to dampen the ground occasionally.  It is not enough. So despite the appearance of my black winter raincoat hanging with the pink purse in a bathroom stall while I made my water, we haven’t quite reach winter and the rains that we often get.  We haven’t even achieved fall yet despite the turning of the leaves of some of the trees from green to brown.  That is an effect of no water, no rain.

            One of the things that took me by surprise when I was brought to Oregon by my then soon to be husband to plan our wedding was how green everything was.   When we got off of the plane in Eugene, Oregon, it was green everywhere.  We had left from Idaho in March from snow on the ground and where it was bare, dull, brown dead grass peeking through where the snow had melted. As we continued to travel to my husband’s parents’ house on the Oregon coast, it continued to be green everywhere and flowers, there were flowers, Daffodils everywhere cheering up the world with their bright yellow blooms.  I felt as if I was in a different world, a world of make-believe.

            My make-believe world has turned brown, parched and wasted by fire in some places.  In many ways, it is a reflection, a mirror of what can happen in our hearts, our minds.  We are bombarded by the media, the people in our community, by the family in our lives.  I find myself sometimes surrounded by the lack of summer in the world around me, instead winter seems to be everywhere. But as always, I bundled up in my black winter raincoat, sling the long strapped pink purse over my shoulder and head out to face my summer fading into winter with a smile on my face.