I’ve been thinking a lot about curiosity lately. This special state of alert, ponderousness requires that all basic needs are being met, that one is essentially safe. It implies an amount of space; time for inquiries that meander, back track, or even peter off. Curiosity is comfortable, even intimate, with mistake making. Aside from the cat, curiosity conjures a contradictory collection of ideas. Imagine the pink cheeked attentive child investigating the anatomy of a daisy. The nosy, condemning, busy body of a neighbor peering and spittling behind a pair of binoculars. Revel at the stunningly productive curiosity of scientists like Einstein, but recall the role of curiosity in rationalizing inhumane and racist, scientific agendas across our human story (the heinous example of eugenics for one).
Curiosity is a privilege and a weapon. It is a high octane fuel that drives human ‘progress’ and innovation. It is neither benign nor evil, more like a slippery shimmering liquid mercury. Please handle your own tendency toward curiosity with the reverence, attention and care it deserves.
More time for tea
With so much less scurrying about, (no traveling to and from work, no picking up or dropping off my girls at school or sleep overs or social events, no going out with friends) I am finding such a bounty of time on my hands. I have time to clean out cupboards, time to try my hand at cello, time to teach our dog how to leap through a hula hoop, time to count geese flocks heading north along our river corridor, time for cooking experiments, time for two walks a day, and time to make a cup of tea in the middle of a work session! What a remarkable aspect of this thing we call freedom, that from within this tightening, this restriction of our social freedoms, emerges an unexpected proliferation of personal freedoms.
Kitchen Butterfly
I made this for work this morning, as an example for students, hoping to engage them with the experience of assembling a cohesive image from random household objects. Another teacher (thank you Puilan) initially put out the challenge of kitchen art and I will admit that I started this process more out of obligation (to that challenge and to building online content for my students) than for pure joy. I was surprised how quickly it shifted me into the flow state, placing items next to each other, gazing, rearranging, hunting in my cupboards which were suddenly transformed to an artist’s treasure trove of odd and beautiful shapes and colors. I really do recommend spending half an hour making your own assembled image. If you do, please share a photo. I’d love to see what you create.
Gazing through a window watching rain and sunshine, I notice...
How each rain drop, traveling downward at a speed to rapid for my eye to track, reflects the improbable sunlight streaming earthward at a speed to great for my mind to fathom.
How the wet rhododendron leaves glimmer and curl like little patent leather shoes.
How the infinite droplets gather on and release from the bright leaves, individuals collecting and collaborating to make shimmering robust bulbs of water that leap and jiggle from leaf to dark wet soil below. Two rhythms in a visual symphony; sky-to-leaf a seemingly unsynchronized, relentless patter, leaf-to-ground a steady liquid drip.
How two chickadees and a junco shelter in the woven branches, under the leaf roof, flitting, preening, wiggling their tail feathers, occasionally wrestling with a twig, for joy? for nest materials? in frustration? I wish I could inquire but I don’t know a word of chickadee.
A Place to Sit…
An unexpected joyous outcome of Social Distancing is the bounty of time I suddenly have at home, some of which I am getting to spend in my studio. This place has missed me and I have missed it. I love the light through the windows and skylight. I love the smell of the slightly talkative wooden floors. I love the table full of materials, waiting where I left them, and I love the chair I sit in at my sewing machine. It is a banged up old wooden chair with no nails or screws, all pegs and glue. It is small, curvy and upright with a nice butt shape to the seat. The chair is beautiful, practical, and patient. It has aged well. The chair possesses many qualities I admire and aspire to.
A list
7 things I did for myself today:
1. I looked at the bent coat hanger and the half empty bottle of draino we’ve been administering to our shower drain all weekend and I called a plumber. He was talkative and tattooed and oh so much better at unclogging our pipe!
2. I played the piano.
3. I put on earrings.
4. I laughed with my coworkers.
5. I listened while my daughters talked about the paths of their day.
6. I performed a brave and wonderful food experiment that is baking in my oven right now. (Thank you to all the hippie veggie food explorers who have gone before me. Thank you Yumm sauce!)
7. I am sipping a small glass of whiskey with an ice cube in it, and writing this list. I am grateful.
notebook…
Art and Eggs
I have a show up in Morning Glory Cafe this month. Treat yourself to breakfast and have a look see!
