Bypassing "Ready, Set"

My attention span, activities, emotions, energy level, perspective, ability to focus: all scattershot these days.

And, by "these days" I don't just mean the past few weeks, I mean the past four months.

Looks like that's what's mine to work with. So that's what I work with!

When I returned from Virginia mid-February I was chomping at the bit to put a big ol' canvas on my easel and paint with broad strokes and bold movement. I work tiny and on paper way more typically than tremendous on canvas but I wanted L A R G E. I was so impatient I didn't even finish unwrapping the plastic from the canvas before grabbing paint and brush.

first pass on new canvas, 2/21/20

detail, first pass on new canvas, 2/21/20

Patience

Chronic neurological Lyme disease can take a lonnng time to respond to treatment. We are given abundant opportunity to practice patience here. Overabundant.

Snippets of conditions in which to paint are hard to come by in my current circumstances where there is little to no predictability. I call on the trust I've always held for the unfolding of my creative life, no matter its pace or form.

All right, all right, all right. I confess: I am impatient.

About painting.

About healing.

Especially and repeatedly and fiercely about wanting healing to manifest.

And so it seems only appropriate that I wish to appropriate the concept and cadence of Pat Schneider's poem The Patience of Ordinary Things.

My version:

It's a kind of love, is it not?
How the brown glass bottle holds the tincture,
How the calendar hangs on the wall, with appointments in squares,
How our phones receive the typing of texts
Or emails. How the muscle of our hearts
Knows what it is supposed to do.
I've been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how silverware
Waits patiently in drawers
And dishes dry quietly on the tea towel on the counter,
And bookmarks keep track
Of what page we will read next.
And the lovely repetition of slats in window blinds.
And what is more generous than a painting in progress?

works in progress