Greetings, salutations and a gladly glorious Saturday to you all!
I’m just home from the market. It’s a wonder I managed to pedal my bike home; I had a huge bag of veggies, a mittful of sunflowers and wee Penelope spilling out of my panniers. I was sure I was going to tip right over on a couple of turns I took whilst wending my way back to The Gables but I didn’t.
I suppose that’s the thing about tumbles, they always occur when you least expect them and when you think one is coming, it doesn’t.
Yesterday I saw a pair of fighting hummingbirds
zooming at each other by the concord grapevines;
cheeping like mad.
I thought to myself, if those fellows can’t live peacefully how can there be any hope for humankind.
I’m not usually so fatalistic, usually I can only see the good and the beauty in everything, but I suppose those hummingbirds caught me in a moment of soul frump and feeling grump. Really, animals fight within their own species rather often whether it’s rutting elk, horses establishing pecking order or dogs dominating each other.
I suppose the difference between animals and humans is that we fight over things like world dominance, oil, fouled up NAFTA agreements and ridiculous arguments over which personal liberties should remain personal liberties.
Sigh.
Let’s just all eat a piece of peace.
I’ve got to keep looking up to stop myself from looking down all the time.
All of that vague musing aside, there were these things:
1. A really beautiful nine mile run last night. Zooming over rocks, in and out of mountain shadows, wetting my hair in the cool of a spring creek, Farley on my heels, a covey of Hungarian partridge on the wing and the rustic rattle of tall, dry grasses waiting for their blanket of winter white.
2. My first day back in the studio. The humming of machinery. The smell of chemicals. The spark of my torch. The toothy grind of my saw blade deep in metal.
3. So much social activity. Firefighters. Friends. Cold wine and yam fries on the patio down at the train tracks beneath the West bench.
4. My mailbox. Stuffed to the brim with all sorts of amazing bits and pieces.
5. The brightness of the stars here. I missed them while I was in Washington.
6. The beets I’m roasting right now in the oven, that earthy, jewel magenta scent is filling the house. They make me feel swaddled in organic health.
7. This book. Which I flip through at night before falling asleep. It makes me feel normal (maybe even beautiful) when it comes to having collections of dead stuff piled up about my home. In point of fact, my dear friend Sue just brought me a full length shed of her boa constrictors skin. That sounds gross, but it’s really beautiful in texture and coloration. I’m going to put it on the wall.
8. Nesting. It happens to me this time of year after I’ve taken a lot of trips and collected a ridiculous amount of sticks, stones and shells. The rearrangement of my home, my furniture, my collections. Making the collections in my studio relevant with respect to my current inspirations. Cleaning said studio. Taking my coffee and tea slow on the front porch where the wind can ruffle my feathers.
9. Catching up on my correspondence. I’ve written so many postcards this week. Just random jottings to let people know I’ve been thinking of them. I fell right off the letter writing wagon these past couple of months which is unusual for me. I’m pretty passionate about the art of letter writing and to have not made time for it this summer has been a big mistake.
10. Officially and with great anticipation, counting down the handful of days until RW comes home. He’s on the brink of the end of his fire season and has actually already decided when he’s coming home. We have so many decisions to make when he comes home; our plans for the fall, winter and spring; the trips we want to take and the experiences we want to make.
I can’t help but wonder what this past week has held for you.
Why don’t you tell me?
I ask because I really do care to know.
So much of my relationship with you is one sided.
You know so much about me but my knowledge of you is so limited…
How does your Saturday fare?
Are you also obsessed with roasted beets?
Are there sunflowers on your kitchen table?
How does your soul feel?
Love, tea roses and tail feathers,
The Plume
Jillian, this Saturday I am home from work. They think I have the flu (and I feel like I do), but really I am withdrawing from the anxiety medication that was propping me up and pulling me down all at once, and that kept my brain fogged.
I have to work on a poetry commission for a lady that I have somehow grown to dislike through our emails. It is impossible to write a poem for someone you dislike. I am sitting, trying to feel friendly towards her, trying to make her a gift of my words. (Although it's not that kind of gift – she is paying me – a good poem, even an impersonal one, has to have so much of the poet in it, that in order to write, I tell myself to make her a gift…)
It is hard today. But it is good. I'm so glad to be able to read your words, and reply with my own.
Dear left ventricle, this morning feels bright even though the skies are thick and dewy. I've been painting for three hours. Just ate some toast with peanut butter. Mulling over going to that beach were we almost lost your camera to the surf. Missing you something fierce. Oh yeah, my nails are so navy they're almost black. And my guest bed is big enough for two.
always. xox
Well if you'd like to know this week I've been missing my daughter TERRIBLY because Jonathan went back to Garland (his home town) to do some hunting and so he took Chloe with him so I could have a bit if a break. And also because during most of August the kids and I have been traveling back and forth to Grandview, Winnipeg and Garland so much I just wanted to stay home! So it's been just Luke and I this week and it's been lonely (he's not much for converation) but also fun. I got to lavish all my attention on him and I've gotten lots of smiles a coo's in return!
I also became and Aunty for the second time yesterday! Jonathan's brother and his wife had another baby boy!! They can't decide what to name him so all I know is that he's 9 lbs and cute as heck!!
That's all for me!!!
Ta ta!!
Welcome back, I missed your wonderful words this week. I've had a great week..Etching, etching, etching copper and creating pendants and earrings from the pile of beauties. Today is very special for me, our youngest son turns 43 and his son turns 1 year old today. Next week his daughter turns 2 years old – I'd say they have had a busy year. I really wish we lived closer so we could enjoy the family more but we don't so that is what airplanes are for – right?? Have a wonderful, productive weekend and think only happy thoughts – like RW returning to Plume Gables soon. XXOO Sal
Ooh I went to the market this morning & it was lovely (if not incredibly busy).
I bought a dozen cobs of corn (among other goodies) and they were the BEST cobs I've ever tasted in my entire life. ENTIRE LIFE.
So sweet.
We didn't use butter or salt or anything, just chomped away and savoured it all. I'm so glad I have 8 cobs left!
my soul feels….
happiness.
slightly bittersweet.
in love.
in touch with a few other souls.
so glad to read your words.
I had a lovely Saturday (as it sounds, you did too) in SF. I rode my bike through Golden Gate Park to Ocean Beach. On the way, I stopped at the Dahlia Dell to enjoy the flowers that are in their peak bloom; I took pictures and couldn't take anymore, 'cause I had bikin' to do! My favorite pic was of a huge dahlia with a bumble bee in the middle of it!
I went to Sunday Fellowship and heard the lovely pastor, Douglass Fitch, say some lovely words. He was forced to retire from his church at 70 years old, and just by accident I found that he speaks twice a month at a shared church… he's about 5 feet tall and has all the wisdom in the world. He speaks to me.
Thanks for your wonderful blog, Mz. Plumage and looking forward to reading more…
Jillian,
I've been lurking reading your words for some time now. I lived 2 doors down from RW for years, had his dad as a teacher and was in his sister V's class. I found your blog through his mom passing the various family etsy sites to me. So hello 🙂
My weekend has been wonderful solitude, my husband leaving me and the dog together while he went to Idaho (Island Park area) to visit his brother and catch fish. Long peaceful days, punctuated by yoga and dog walking, my own running near the the bay where I was distracted by 5 white pelicans circling higher and higher and higher. I've made lentils and brown rice and eaten inordinate amounts of watermelon. I've painted my toes and might wash that gray right out of my hair a little later…if I feel like it.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and pictures, I enjoy them!
I spent Saturday in the boreal forest, near the White Gull Creek, where I picked, along with my husband and our great friend, a mountain of wild blueberries. We then made a delicious fire cooked meal, listened to some new music and talked into the darkness. I then retired to our Boler to have the best 12 (yes, 12!) hour sleep of my life after lying on the pine needle forest floor and staring at the stars. Summed up as the best, last camping weekend of the summer. Yeah for snowmobile shelters, abandoned in the summer, waiting to be enjoyed by those that seek solitude. Not a fifth wheel, satellite dish or generator in view! Only us three and that curious bear. Heaven.