The Joy of Fresh Peaches, Still Warm from the Sun

I sometimes see the simplicity of my current life and think I don't deserve it. (What right do I have to spend hours writing, painting, reading, designing, and cultivating an organic veggie garden?)

Then I remember how very hard I've worked: how I barely breathed for years -- and how severely I crippled my wrists during 70-hour weeks hunched over a laptop in Toronto -- and I say yes: I do deserve this.

(And so do you.)




A couple days ago, my dad and I picked about twenty peaches from a tree in our yard. They were magnificent -- organic (and sometimes a bit insect-eaten) and so aromatic. I had forgotten how wonderful they are...




I've been watching the seasons change. I love to look back at my photographs of the transformation: a photo from Spring (pear blossoms) and the small Japanese pears that are now growing on that tree. (Delightful!)

Toad's Eye View

Just a moment ago, while weeding sunflowers...




... a discovery:

Through a Small Glass (Brightly)

David Duclos: are you reading this?

~ * ~

No?

Good...

~ * ~

Yes?

Then please stop now -- and please return after July 13th. :)

~ * ~

I am working on a stained glass piece: a gift for David and Manjit -- to celebrate their wedding. I've been thinking about it for a couple weeks, and yesterday I sketched out a preliminary design.





This morning and afternoon, I started to add detail to the sketch (and remove some detail from the dress):




Then I added colour:




(There's much more to do, of course -- but I thought I'd share the progress here. I'll post an update with new photographs in a day or two.)

A Flowering Summer Squash, Accompanied by Georgia O'Keefe

"Nobody sees a flower, really, it is so small. We haven't time -- and to see takes time like to have a friend takes time.

"If I could paint the flower exactly as I see it no one would see what I see because I would paint it small like the flower is small. So I said to myself -- I'll paint what I see -- what the flower is to me but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it -- I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.

"Well, I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see of the flower -- and I don't."

Georgia O'Keefe

Three Days of Rain

When I woke this morning, the sun had just begun to burn the fog away. I dashed outside with my camera and captured this:




And this:




Three days of rain -- and the sunflowers have grown to my thighs. The desiccated earth is moist again. The leaves are vivid green... The lake is high.

A Martha Graham Moment

This morning, still feeling a bit fatigued from last night, I showered slowly: feeling the heat of the water dissolving points of tension in my neck. Then, after toweling dry, I stood before my closet, looking for the path of least resistance.

I found a pair of (khaki) linen pants and slipped them on. Then I pulled a stretchy green blouse over my head and paused as I twisted to the side to stretch my back.

It was there -- spine twisted left, eyes cast down, elbows stretching the fabric in unnatural angles -- that I caught a glimpse of myself in the dresser mirror. There was something surreal about that moment -- a resonance that took me a moment to identify: in some small (and accidental) way, I resembled Martha Graham.




_________________________

(Photo credits: Top image is from Graham's "Letter to the World," photographed by Barbara Morgan; bottom image is from "Lamentation," photographed by Herta Moselsio and displayed on the Library of Congress website.)