My couch & chair cascade

Written last night: 

Dear Friends,

Suddenly, this morning I moved furniture.

The bookshelves were blocked, so I decided to move the chair.

Moved the chair, so I had to move the lamp.

Moved the lamp, so I had to move the couch.

Moved the couch, so I had to move the green chair.

Green chair doesn’t need light, so I said goodbye to a lamp.

If I can live without the lamp, maybe I don’t need my side table.

… now I can get to the bookshelves.

(but I still wonder about that lamp … )

Love,

k

Always alive

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

This morning Zing and I were leaving the farmers market, bags full of grapes and fish and a beautiful loaf of whole wheat bread, when we noticed an almost-adjacent fair just down the alley. So we went. There were a few things for sale, yes, but this was not a market. Mostly the booths were memorials. “This is a tradition of indigenous Mexican people from before the Spanish arrived,” a man told me. He had stepped back to look at the placement of family photos and a ceremonial bottle of beer on his altar. “We celebrate our ancestors. You are not dead until you are forgotten.” 

Sounds sad, and it is, but there was candy and a bandstand and bright colors everywhere. Orange marigolds are the symbol for Día de los Muertos, November 2.

Love,

k

Three drawings

Written last night:
Dear Friends,

You know how sometimes you scan a book and say “Ugh! Not for me!” ?

And then later, maybe years later, the book speaks to you ...

 

That’s what happened to me with Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I found it dry and didactic when it came out in 1979. But someone in my latest drawing class suggested I look at the updated (2012) version, which I did. The first thing it asks is to make three drawings as a starting point, taking about an hour total, and I just did it.  Maybe you’ll recognize someone, and if you don’t, I’m supposed to get better.

Love,

k

 

1. DRAW A PERSON FROM MEMORY

2. SIT IN FRONT OF A MIRROR AND DRAW A SELF-PORTRAIT

3. DRAW YOUR HAND ANY WAY YOU WANT 

Singing to each other

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

Zing and I were out for our last walk in the dark, and we saw a couple approaching us. They were walking slowly, in step with each other, and when we passed on the sidewalk we could hear them singing to each other — low, light music, their language and melody perhaps Asian. It was one of the  bright spots of my day.

Earlier, I went to hear chamber music at noon — a vibrant pianist (I know -- he doesn't look very vibrant in my drawing!) who played pieces by the Romantic composer César Franck. 

Love,

k

San Francisco

Written last night:

Dear Friends, 

I’m not terrified to go to San Francisco anymore. I'm lucky to have friends who know the place well, and they have showed me some of their favorite places in the city. Sunday Mary Kaye and Leigh took me to lunch with a great view at the Beach Chalet; then we saw the Gustav Klimt exhibit at the Legion of Honor, which you may know as the museum where the famous sculpture The Thinker broods in the courtyard. The best thing, though, was laughing and talking together.

Love,

k

You can see the Golden Gate Bridge from the park 

surrounding the Legion of Honor,

This is the neighborhood where I stayed with my friends

Daisy, the Home Depot cat

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

It was a busy day doing chores, and the last one was at Home Depot’s garden department. I took Zing in with me because the store welcomes dogs. Immediately, Zing nosed around the floor by the cash register. 

“Cat food,” the cashier said. (Zing loves cat food.)

“It’s Daisy’s food.” 

He pointed to a high shelf, and there above the flowers was a yellow cat eyeing us like a furry private detective. 

“Our store cat,” he said proudly.

Do all Home Depots have a cat? 

“I don’t know,” he said. “But she keeps the mice away.”

Without Zing I would have missed her.

Love,

k

Poetry at the library

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

You know I love poetry, and I am amazed to find that Sacramento has lots of people like me. Between noon and 1 p.m. today I joined in the monthly poetry reading at the main library, a short walk from home. It was a half-dozen people sitting around a table in a large, book-filled, but otherwise empty space called The Sacramento Room. It’s so simple. We each brought a poem to read,  A little discussion might follow, and then the next person reads. There were two women, friends of about 30, and a young man, an older man, Mary the librarian, and me. One of the women had memorized her poem (by Kentucky farmer-poet Wendell Berry); she said she recited it out loud every time she fed her new baby. I hope to return.

Love,
k

Lost moon

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

This is what I saw early yesterday. This morning I looked for the moon again, but it wasn’t there. So I drew the moon.

Love,

k

A natural valentine

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

Today Zing and I walked by the river again. There’s a blacktop path for bikes, with softer shoulders for walkers and joggers. Then we veer off to a sandy path approaching the water. We go as far as a steep drop full of holes; By now Zing knows the routine: he lies down at the crest and looks over to where he’d like to run. At this point my knee would never let me clamber that angle. (But I’m exercising, so maybe someday, Zing!)

From that point today I looked over the grass to the water and felt myself missing Clark and cried.* Missing is different from sad. Then I turned around, called Zing; we started down the path we'd just walked and saw this — a natural valentine.

Love,

k 

*I tell you about these tears because maybe you cry too — for Clark or someone else, or something traumatic in your life. Then you know. -k 

Pears off the page

Written last night:
Dear Friends,

Today's fun: 

• cleaned Rosa’s windows. Usually the rag gets yellow with pollen. Today it was black.
• explored a new neighborhood, which locals call The Pocket. It’s near downtown, where the road goes straight but the Sacramento River bends outward, making a “pocket" of land full of ‘60s-style ranch homes protected by a levee. Looks like a peaceful place.
• sang a song at church. 
• found a great coffee place -- Philz, almost in my neighborhood. The cashier and I talked about books. “Thank you for your wavelength,” she said to me as I left. (Nobody ever said that to me before.)
• drew these pears, as they ran off the page.

Love,

k

Nature is never routine

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

People groan at routine — boring! — but I’m glad to be getting a dependable, flexible design for my days. Back in Tallahassee Zing and I would run in the woods on Tuesday and Thursday, and finally we’ve found a safe place here to enjoy nature. Today we went to the American River again, just like we did last week. It feels like our old routine. I even thought I saw an alligator lurking by the water. It was a log.

Love,

k

Watching fingers dance

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

After Zumba, which always makes me dance and cry at the same time (Don’t worry — I’m in the back row.) I went to hear chamber music at noon. It was a piano, cello, violin trio of American favorites: Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein. Thanks to my humble ukulele playing (if you can call it that!), I mostly watched the fingers of the violinist and cellist: how do they get so nimble? It’s that gift we call muscle memory, honed by practice and years of playing. 

Today I didn’t even try to draw at the concert.  But here’s a mandala I’ve been working on. I love its sky-blue and cloud-pink palette — more cheerful than our present smoky skies.

Love,

k

12" x 12"

On the edge of flame

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

Sacramento is on the edge of the fires devouring Sonoma and Napa counties  — here we have no flame, just smoke. This photo isn’t Sacramento, though; it’s Dixon, about 20 minutes southwest of here -- in the direction of wine country. I drove there today to buy some walnuts. (This is a newly-planted field, and I don’t know what the crop is.) Usually you can see mountains in the distance, but today they were blotted out. The sun, too, is shaded by smoke. I could smell smoke, faintly. We are lucky to be safe.

Love,

k

P.S. At 2 this morning I woke up to the smell of smoke. Had I left the oven on? (After dinner I'd used it for five minutes, toasting nuts.) Then I remembered the fires, and, barely awake, I fumbled to close the bedroom door to the balcony. The smoke  was out there, and it's still there this morning.

We just played

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

I believe I played for the last 24 hours. With my visiting friend Midori I just had fun. Probably to look at us you wouldn’t immediately think !!FUN!!! but until Midori left for the airport this evening we did what we wanted (simple things: Midori was wow-ed by the farmers market under the freeway and she added a zesty Zentangle (she teaches that enjoyable approach to drawing) presence to my Sunday Crocker drawing class.) We shared a huge Thai dinner at The Coconut, and Zing joined us at our sidewalk table. We didn’t talk about heavy things, solve world problems, or pesky personal ones. We didn’t even do the breakfast and lunch dishes. We just played. 

Love,

k

At the Crocker

Midori's photo of Zing

She and Zing talked a lot

At The Crocker with Midori and our drawing teacher Erin O'Toole

Bridge bonanza

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

Today was a bridge bonanza. This morning Zing and I were walking across the gold bridge, when a siren shrieked, terrifying us -- we realized it was a warning that the center of the bridge (where we were) would soon rise.  Zing did not need persuasion. We both raced to the city side and the gates clanged down behind us.  The center of the bridge creaked skyward, not at an angle, like a drawbridge, but straight up --  who knows how many feet -- to make room for big boats. None passed through; it was a routine test, but thrilling anyway. 

Then the street descended and the bridge was whole again. We crossed over, normally,  and strolled along the Sacramento River toward the I-Street Bridge. A woman we met along the way said when she was a kid they called it “The Black Bridge." It is a metal-truss swing bridge, which means a piece of it can angle out to leave space for passing big boats.

This drawing shows the I Street Bridge on the west bank. Cars and pedestrians go on top, and trains pass on the bottom level. The river is to the right.

Love,

k

Finding nature

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

You know I’m trying to live a routine.

Like I lived before

with Clark

It’s not the same, but 

somehow he is both the empty place

and its fulfillment.

For instance, this morning, when Zing and I returned, as I plan to do every week, to the American River up there somewhere off Arden, where it's like Phipps Park, by Lake Jackson in Tallahassee, where we used to run in the Red Hills. It is familiar — both Zing and I were feeling it. 

Love,

k

Drawing a bridge

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

You know I love bridges, so I decided to draw them this week; our class is supposed to be drawing things we see outside. For my first (clumsy, I realize!) attempt, Zing and I stood on the sidewalk of the yellow bridge near our home. The Tower Bridge, as it's known here, is the color of California gold; it crosses the Sacramento River and has become a symbol for the city. It’s a vertical lift bridge, meaning the center rises mechanically, thanks to machinery in its two towers, so high boats  can pass under. From the bridge it's a straight view across a grassy mall to the Capitol building a dozen blocks away.

Love,

k

I got lost -- but found a pecan roll!

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

Thoughts while drawing a pecan roll from Ettore’s Bakery:

Today I talked to friends (Hi, Mona!) 

And family (Hi, Patrice!)

and Patrick and Steph and the dog family.  

… and Tony, who loves Zing and watches him every Tuesday afternoon. (Hi, Tony!) Zing used to stand outside Tony’s door and ask me what we were doing there. Now he struts right in and I go do errands and have fun. The fun today was having my skin checked for what they call “sun damage” and I call “sailing memories.” Going to the dermatologist I got lost, but coming back I found Ettore’s bakery and this pecan roll. 

Hope your breakfast is sweet too.

Love,

k

Can you draw a dream?

Written last night:
Dear Friends,

At 1:30 this morning a loud slapping sound woke me. After a moment I figured out it was the giant flag on the roof of the bank across the street, whipping in a strong wind. I stumbled over to the balcony and slid the door shut, turned on the dehumidifier’s white noise machine, and went back to sleep. Suddenly it’s fall, windy and cool.

At breakfast I had an urge to write out some practical realizations about my new life. (For one, I just realized that Zing — despite all the complication he’s caused — has been better than a shrink for me. Cheaper too.) Much as I love to write, it's not often this meandering, soul-searching stuff.

Zing and I did a few errands and I had my eyes checked. I’m beginning to take Zing more places, rather than go to the trouble of leaving him home alone, medicated. Many places welcome dogs here.

After dinner I watched TV, but not really. I got HBO for a month, but haven’t had the taste for much. I began to watch the Jane Fonda/Robert Redford movie, based on a novel by great writer Kent Haruf and recommended by my old writing professor at FSU. Boring. Turned it off.  Any recommendations?

So the day filled up with little things. I drew a mistake.  Nothing to show you! 

(Which makes me think -- you know how people keep a notebook beside the bed to write down dreams? Maybe I'll keep a bedside book to draw my dreams.

Love,
k

Mind Your Head!

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

Drawing class at the Crocker today means more drawings tonight -- plus a final photo with advice on a sign from an antique/junk store nearby; the proprietor has an English accent, and so does the sign.

Love,

k

Pumpkin on my table

Wing, above, and darling left foot, below,
belong to a cherub in a much bigger painting by Thomas Willeboirts at the Crocker