and it's 60 degrees and sunny

 Painting in progress. This is a little shack on the beach at Camp Arrowhead. This day was amazingly beautiful, and the greens and blues were this bright...or at least, they seemed so to me. Love the dark shadows and the deep, cool colors. This will be a fun one.

The title of this one is "Lost". Not because I was, but because that's how I felt on this particular evening. I was being coerced into ignoring some important things and manipulated into feeling others. As I looked out over this view, and was captivated by the mirror image of the water and sky, I was at the same time feeling a good deal of distress. Nature has a way of pointing you in the right direction, just by giving you something amazing to look at, to feel, to feed your soul.

Stuff in February.

 Painting in Progress. Possible title: Lost. Still a ways to go, but liking how it's coming along. Need to focus on tree line that looks like mountains...ah, that will never do. Update coming.

 This was the sky last night. It was very warm, probably 65. To the north, the sky was full of color and clouds, to the south, it was clear as a bell. Beautiful.

 "Southern Girls" is a new show at Possum Point, about racial issues in the 60's. It chronicles the lives of several black and several white girls who grow up together, and illustrates how their lives/beliefs/prejudices change and don't change. This is the back drop I painted for the set. The "poor" side to the left" and the wealthier white side to the right. The tree in the middle is a symbol of the tree that one of the girls' brothers was hung from.

Ah, Sunday.

So, the weather has been total CRAP. But...it's a free Sunday, and I'm excited. Nothing I "have" to do, and isn't that a great feeling? So, there will be painting. There will be running. And even a little cleaning, because that feels so good too...when it's over. There's even a little bit of sun in the sky today. Carpe diem!

But seriously now..

How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

For the romantic...in all of us.

Laura

What a fun show! One of my favorites, with a stellar cast.

Windows to your soul

“I have noticed that if you look carefully at people's eyes the first five seconds they look at you, the truth of their feelings will shine through for just an instant before it flickers away.”

― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

Cold as a witches dishes.

 Yeah. Winter. It's been a cold one...as you can see by the view outside my office window. These things are lethal weapons. And they'd leave no evidence.

I love my friends, they're as weird as I am.

Faith, a poem by my daughter.

 

Funny, it is

we are born to this world without a choice

hurled in to its' bustle.

It's easier, don't you think

to believe in all the reasons why

it's easier to believe there is a rhyme and reason

your body, your very flesh is placed under ground

to be forgotten.

Seems that most place their "life proof"

blinders around their eyes and gather

together in the same building

on the same day every week

reading, and re-reading the same book

that someone had read and re-read thousands

of years before.

The uncertainty of this whole damn thing

lurks outside every door just waiting to be noticed.

Why is it that we have gotten our egos so big

that we think death is the most terrifying part of life.

No matter how much it occurs everyday

we never grow accustomed to the idea.

And this is what particularly intrigues me,

a man will spend his entire life claiming he knows

there is "something" bigger

but yet when his heart begins to fail

he is completely taken over by fear.

Fear of the very thing he had built

his life's entire foundation on.

I like not to speak to much while I'm here

because I have always found

when you truly understand something

you grow silent.

There's nothing more to figure out

nothing left to read, repeat, or preach.

So just tell me, can you honestly say you understand

or are we all just trying to.