May third

Another rainy morning and gray afternoon. I went out in a break and pried up some small pieces (well, one was big enough I had to “roll” it along one edge to move it) of marble, laid out as stepping stones in the yard long long ago. There wasn’t a fancy sunset tonight at all, so I did this based on a photo from a few weeks ago.

May third

Tonight’s Light Show

I was lucky to find myself out and about in just the right place and time. Click this photo for the flickr album!

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Tonight’s Light Show

Clouds, Rainbows and Light

Went out hoping for maybe some wet roads to paint. Didn’t get that but did get some great rainbows and clouds.

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Clouds, Rainbows and Light

Where did June Go?

Mainly it went in a swirling of brain-drain as I trained and adjusted to doing a new thing while working from home. It has taken really three weeks to go from abject terror to only moments of wondering what-the-heck-am-I-doing, LOL. Toward the end of last week, which ends on Saturday, I had moments of – oh, I know what to do here! Or hearing someone else asking a question in our support chat and thinking, ‘isn’t that…?’ So slow but sure.

Working at home means no forty-five minute plus commute each way, but also means I make my own coffee and breakfast and lunch. And dinner. Sometimes I get to eat one or all of those sitting on the front steps. Sometimes I get to dash out afterwork because the sun is out and I can get a painting in and take photos of the evening coming on.

July brings with it World Watercolor Month so get ready for a more regular appearance of paintings here. After that – August Poetry Postcard Festival 2020 – although with the pandemic in play, some of us started early on that. I did a month’s worth of postcards during NaPoWriMo in April.

I feel the rhythm of my year changing and yet it’s the same. A few photos popped up in facebook of watercolors I’d done in 2016 and 2019 and it was interesting to see what was the same and what was different. Since being home I found a place in New Lebanon where there is a 360 degree view of the sky. Looking back years from now I’ll be reminded of the pandemic by many many panoramas of the sky and clouds and landscape.

Here are photos from today. Mostly clouds and landscape but a few plants and flowers and a couple mushrooms that snuck in at the end. Look close – some of the clouds were being visited by birds and other things!

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Where did June Go?

I went in search of clouds

I’m still in the “exhausted by the mental work of new work” phase of working from home. After work, I sat down at a different computer screen with some ice water and enjoyed Billy Collins’ “Broadcast” as he likes to call his 20-30 minute Facebook Live gig. I hope when some of the restrictions lift, someone will say – Billy, you should do this Broadcast on YouTube weekly say and post it on your own website where it can be archived easily and enjoyed by all your fans and used by teachers everywhere.

Well I can hope anyway.

Then I glanced outside and off I went to bring back memories of some fearsome clouds.

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I went in search of clouds

NaPoWriMo – Day Twenty-Five

I laughed at myself for writing out a postcard with this and then realizing tomorrow’s Sunday so of course no mail, but then I almost forgot that the interwebs is still open for business as normal. It was a beautiful day here and so I went out and painted, gradually reducing the layers I was wearing. Then I had a grocery pickup and discovered I had a cotton shirt in my car so I changed when I got to Mom’s with the shopping.

The daffodils have risen
up to the bird feeder
as May approaches;
the sky is full
of yellow fluttering.
A theory of them
being there year-round
and leaping up
to meet the spring
so elegant and yet
each year met with
my joyful surprise.

Perseverance is a great element of success. If you knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

NaPoWriMo – Day Twenty-Five

NaPoWriMo – Day Twenty-two

Wow – a week to go? how did that happen? How was your April? How was your day?

Woke up to snow and January cold.
There was no mail in the box —
I stood looking at the daffodils
crushed down by a cruel spring night.
From there, things went on —
web pages just hung and didn’t load,
the pounding surf of the web reduced to
ebbs and flows of bandwidth.
It was warmer in the car at
lunchtime than inside the house,
and my cats looked woeful but
glad to get rid of me for an hour.
The daffodils were up when I returned
disregarding metaphors or forecasts.

My pen scratched and sputtered and
I realized finally – it had run dry.
I laughed at myself for having
muttered myself over this all day.
I cleaned it at the bathroom sink
flushing it with water til clear
then carefully filled it and – imagine –
only got one tip of a finger blue.
As I stood and scrubbed away the ink
the sky was orange at the horizon
and the sun a diamond in the
branches of trees somewhere near
I bowed my head to my task again,
the story of the day within.

NaPoWriMo – Day Twenty-two

NaPoWriMo – Day Twenty

Today was a day about the day job. Felt strange and in a weird way lonelier than the past month and a half. But we trudge on folks, we trudge on. (And a hat tip to my Mom, Betty Frezon for a line in her chat tonight that ended up in this poem!)

I refilled the coffee grinder today
where it hangs ready to churn my
morning beans into a small jar.
I looked at the bigger jar with
its inch of oatmeal remaining.
I threw away the cheese wrapper
and rinsed the empty milk carton.
Took the trash out, bin rumbling
put some boxes in recycling too
gave coffee grounds to the garden.
The evening light shone out of
daffodils so delightfully happy
whatever time had been measured
was paused and pressed in amber.

NaPoWriMo – Day Twenty

Sunset

Sunset

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