Life flows at four speeds, four gaits.
I walk, I trot, I lope, I gallop.
I gallop now, sucking wind, not slowing even when the earth pitches itself into a hill beneath my feet.
Soon, I’ll slow down to a walk, breathe deeply,
there will be stillness even when I find myself moving.
Even now, despite the speed, there are sunsets,
full moons to set me glowing,
a fine, pale, dust shimmering there on my fingertips,
a distant howl,
the new lengths of the days,
the steady creep of water under ice.
There are these things.
Life has been a tornado of fantastically solid phantasm these past two weeks!
We’ve been spinning madly and happily in the good hands of family and friends,
criss-crossing the countryside, holding ruddy cheeked nephews, embracing new friends
from afar, celebrating, feasting, drinking, laughing and living! There’s been so much living in these past two weeks, so much living that I’ve felt guilty at times, until I’m reminded that the time spent out of my studio and away from my computer is time that fills my creative wells, pushes fat breezes into my wind greedy sails and pulls me into new nations of inspiration and innovation. This is to say, I’m allowed to have a life,
a friend reminded me of this:
I make jewelry.
But jewelry isn’t who I am.
I am many things and the work of my hands
does not singularly define me.
There are objects I build, but what of the living behind those pieces?
What of the heart here beneath the carefully arranged slats of my
ribcage? What of the light in my eyes? What of the good laws I hold myself to, the white lands of my bones stretching in all directions, the Nameable thing that begs me to be better in all ways?
My studio has been cold for days, no, for the better part of a pair of weeks.
But there’s still construction in full swing here.
It’s called living.
Someday soon, I’ll pour these emotions, these thoughts, these moments lived
into something tangible and carefully fabricated.
Until then:
I am the slender, white twig leaning over the water
and ice, trembling in the down valley drafts, believing in spring
with all my heart.
Sleepy cork cambium.
I’m reflected in the deeper pools
where the sky rests
and sweeps tattered leaves beneath the fray of raw silk
rugs. There’s something decadent, simple and hidden here between my hands, tightly clasped.
Something wound into a tiny bud.
Something worth unfurling…
That Nameable thing has been playing a soaring prelude on my heartstrings.
(The music falls so gently on my deaf ears.)
There’s no space. (Who needs space?)
There’s no horizon! (The distance is so very grand.)
How I love to run. (To breathe! To wade into stillness!)
I wear a sigh of contentment on the rush of my lips. (These paces, these gaits, these four hooves
bruising the grass, chasing the tail of day, cresting, the crescendo of a shared life, of shared lives, before running into the arms of diminuendo.)
[I stole a moment. I took a walk.]
We are expecting another four, fairly continuous, weeks of varied forms of company, here at The Gables.
I’m delighted, though tired.
People rarely come to Idaho.
Now they’re coming all at once!
I’m going to host them all.
One by one.
I’m going to draw them hot baths, thick with Epsom salts and lavender.
Build stalwart soups in deep pots atop my kitchen stove.
Bake them loaves of bread spiked with rosemary and almond fragments.
And I’ll continue to receive the daffodils they hold so kindly in their hands
when they step up onto my front steps and carefully ring my door chime, only to set
the dog pack howling and barking, time and time again.
I hope you’re all well.
Good gracious, I sure am!
There’s too much love, softly flinging itself at me from all directions, for me to be found unwell.
A new week begins here.
Hold on tight!
We’re galloping now!
xx
Plume