A Country Girl Becomes a City Girl Again (Until the Harvest)

On Sunday, I leave for Toronto; I'll be there for roughly six weeks (and may spend a few days in Montreal and Ottawa, or elsewhere in Eastern Canada). I'm excited and very happy...

In a Park where I Played as a Child

Walking through a playground by the home of a childhood friend, I found myself remembering.




There are so many places we frolicked here. I found it a bit surreal to look at the swingsets and jungle gyms and see how small they are, since in my memory they towered like skyscrapers...




Other memories tower too.

I remember her dunken father: unsteady on their yellow porch, bellowing.



Remember how afraid she was to walk across the grass alone to her abusive father's fists. (She spent the night at my house so often as a child that my mom bought us bunkbeds. When we were just a few feet tall, she told me she wanted to run away. She didn't, though -- how far can a ten year old girl run?)



I found myself wondering about her: hoping she has found a safer place to be -- and still feeling afraid.



Did she marry a man like her father?

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