NaPoWriMo 2023 Day 30

This month really did seem to fly by (at least on most days) and the daily writing and painting were a good thing. Looking forward to May and warmer spring days.

last day of april
both light and dark creeping in
cold and windy

cleaned my paintboxes
reminding these eyes about
sunshine and shadow

painting every day
made it easier to paint
even on gray days

writing every day
waiting for anything worth
noting then writing.

NaPoWriMo 2023 Day 30

Button, Button – Who’s Got The Button?

Very unexpected find today. I’m pretty confident that that’s my very first Question Authority button, which I got by asking the woman who was wearing it if I could get one and she handed it to me (a bit reluctantly perhaps). Because of this, if people comment on my RESIST or “Dare to Call It Treason” buttons, I am ready to hand them over. The more the merrier!

Button, Button – Who’s Got The Button?

Also found, didn’t know it was lost…

Mom found this on the way to getting her St Patrick’s Day door decoration out. She figures it was something done for my home ec class which puts it into the – uh – old category. The cardboard used for this booklet, held together with two blue bread twist ties, is not quite legal size and in fact was what came from the laundry, supporting my father’s freshly cleaned, starched and ironed white work shirts. It was white on one side and grey on the other. The cover looks done with a blue ballpoint pen.

Also found, didn’t know it was lost…

Found on the way to something else.

I found some interesting stuff last night on my way to finding my traditional shamrock pin for today. I think every little kid should be given a rather substantial box of some kind in which to keep treasures, whether they’re rocks and feathers or all the pins and stuff that come along.

Found on the way to something else.

August Postcard Poetry Fest 2021

It’s definitely August (I’m melting!) and so it’s also Postcard Poetry Festival time!

This year I’m in two groups of 32 folks. The plan is to write a poem a day and send it via postcard to each successive person after you on the list. There is a lovely dailiness to this and it’s a good stretch of the “get-it-done-no-matter-what” muscle. Some days a poem comes easily, other days not so much.

I usually go into august armed with a short list of possible fall-back topics and sometimes a plan of what the poems will be – sonnets or whatever. I have quite a collection of postcards to use so I’m set for a long time. I make sure I have stamps. I have my sharpie pens at the ready.

Over the past year, during the pandemic, I began cutting up all my cardboard boxes: crackers, cereal, tissue, into postcard sized pieces. This may have started when I found a stack of old phone books that had nice or interesting covers and I ripped off the covers before recycling the rest. Who knows? Anyway, with a few donations from Mom, I ended up with more than enough postcard-sized hunks of boxes to use for August. I put self-adhesive postcard backs onto them and so far, so good.

I did have a short list of emergency ideas but I haven’t dipped into it yet. Also during the pandemic, I started responding to a friend’s facebook practice of posting a photo and asking us to show our daily “one good thing”. Early on in the pandemic I really looked forward to getting out in the yard and finding something good. Taking photos is another way of looking at things and dailiness is a good practice. When he stopped posting those for awhile, I picked it up and kept it going with my friends. Now that he’s back I send him a different version of my one good thing.

So it seems that in the first couple weeks of PoPoFest 2021 my cards are going out with a short poem about something simple but noticed. Something heard and pondered. After the first couple days, a format I like – three haikus on a theme – seemed to be the plan.

And that can be my good thing for the month!

Here’s a little view of all the cards received so far from the two groups. I also got a card (not shown) snuck in from the World Peace Poetry session in February – very welcome after some list rummaging! And turns out two bonus cards which I’d only registered one.

August Postcard Poetry Fest 2021

NaPoWriMo Day Twenty-Six

Late but it’s still Day Twenty-six on the left coast. Mom and I went out today – to the art supply store and to an office supply store. `I got the few things I “needed” but there might have been more want going on than actual need. And we came home exhausted from the novelty of being out. It’s not the first time we’ve been out but it’s the first we felt no need to rush in and out I guess. We shopped.

In a moment of sheer
I’m not even sure what
desperation? need?
Whatever. I bought
a box of pencils.
Limited edition,
high end, legendary
pencils. A dozen of them.
And three tiny notebooks.
The kind that just fit in
my current pockets.
I don’t carry pencils there
but a fountain pen. Or two.
And with these things I try
to capture the words that
flit past my brain.
But the pencils – those were
just a want. I plopped them
on the counter with the packet
of waiting notebooks, heavy
with anticipation.
Over time pencils will shorten
the erasers rounding
the pages fuzzing and curling
but today we are all shining
and ready for the universe.

And yes I came home with a box of the March 2021 Limited Edition BlackWings, the tribute to Woodie Guthrie. Take that you right wing wackadoodles – I’m a folk-singing-lefty.

Anticipation
Words stored inside a pencil.
waiting to escape.

Sometimes weird things happen when juggling or pulling things out of one’s pocket etc:

NaPoWriMo Day Twenty-Six

NaPoWriMo – Day 10

There were three poems, but this one was a little more ready to go. More in the continuing string of longer than normal poems! Someone on facebook asked what pickles were on our refrigerator shelves and a lively listing ensued. Later it was summed up as a great long and very informative conversation that had nothing to do with the news! I totally agreed. What a welcome diversion.

After I was sick at the beginning of March, I took an actual list and did a pantry shop, just before things got locked down. (When I’d started to feel well enough to stay out of bed for awhile, I had got it in my head to clean out the pantry and kitchen shelves, which I did, a little at a time and many trips to the trash can.) I was glad to have just freshened up all my go-to items, and I’ve been lucky enough to be able to get some groceries for pick up and some fruits and veg delivered!

In these days —
“these difficult times”
when grocery shopping has
taken on a whole new
sense of adventure,
we talk about our
childhood meals and
favorite candybars and
how our sourdough is doing
as though we are indeed
in “difficult times”
My pantry has all the
old standbys, spaghetti,
makings of sauce, baked beans,
soup, sandwiches, pickles, relish.
Tea, coffee beans, sugar.
A few bottles of adult
refreshment for evening
Raisins, a jar of oatmeal.
Doubtful I will starve
although the cats would
tell you otherwise.
They seem concerned.
I reassure them daily.

.

NaPoWriMo – Day 10

NaPoWriMo – Day Five

I think staying home is starting to have some effect…

I wonder about the woman who lives here
Why there are poetry magazines piled
here and there and why so many
phases of books stacked and shelved
Why a herd of mixing bowls and not
so many cake pans or pie plates.
A vast population of mugs, mostly funny
a collection of teaspoons, non-matching.
The house could use, to be kind, some work,
but outside a bank of daffodils shines
and the bird feeders are topped off.
The mailbox stands quite ready and alert.
Here she comes, eyes full of clouds and the moon
a woman of some clear priorities.

NaPoWriMo – Day Five

NaPoWriMo – Day Four

Had a nice dinner with Mom. Beautiful sunset which I watched with a police car watching me. One other person stopped by for a few minutes to snap a few photos. I kept waiting to be told to ‘move along’ but I think the officer was probably watching what I was watching. Here, have a sonnet-ish thing. Sunset photos in the next post!

In My Pocketsies

Even though, it turns out I’m not going
anywhere today. Again. Staying home
because that’s the thing we’re all doing. Uh.
So, even though I’m staying home again.
I get up, do all the things, put on clothes.
comb my hair and then — this is the surprise:
I put things in my pockets like normal.
Well, normal is such a slippery word.
I thought about this today, my pockets,
more specifically the fact I carry
three pens with me, and a small notebook too.
Two in a pocket, one on my neckline,
I’m ready to snare whatever words are
trying to sneak by. Oh — I am ready!

NaPoWriMo – Day Four

World Watercolor Month Day #22

It rained all day and it’s still raining. Which is good because during that insane sunset last night the temperature and humidity dropped 10 points each and this morning it was a swell 65F.

An online tutor that I have, Alan Owen in the UK, posted a video demonstrating mixing various greens and wondering what blues and yellows we were using to mix greens. He’d asked me that question the other day about a painting I’d posted to the group and I have the feeling he’d prefer that we all mix our greens. I do test mixes from time to time because in theory mixing greens make sense. You have blues and yellows on your palette that should be all you need to mix up whatever you need. In reality I keep a few greens on my palette and mix from there. I think it’s often water control that messes me up.

But anyway – rainy day and a question worth answering – what greens can you get from the blues and yellows on your palette (and beyond). I took nine blues and six yellows and did a rather orderly mixing chart. Then I did a page of just various greens I have.

I’ve been thinking of setting up the new palette I got recently but was trying to figure out how to make it different than the one I’m carrying at the moment. So while pondering this I swatched out the yellows and red and browns plus a few purples. That about covered the whole spectrum.

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World Watercolor Month Day #22