la valise turns one

this time last year i was living with 6 other females (if you think that sounds crazy, you're smarter than i was) in a non-insulated back room across the street from chico state university.

i was drawing naked people in a figure drawing class

and watching the chico trees themselves undress

reading les miserables and the chronicles of narnia

running everyday to keep my sanity

day dreaming about slo

ripping pages from a cheap bible to paste on the wall

trying to keep cool, then warm

trying to believe that life would not always be so gnarly.

and now, 13 months later,

i have an address in the town i love

only prayers to pay my bills

(i complain not, i assure you)

half the roomates

twice the recipes

the grapes of wrath

a summer spent with my jesus beneath a fig tree in my friend's backyard

a red hair boy who sat under that fig tree and wept

and the tree outside that was blighted by the heat, but decided not to give up and grew new leaves in october anyway.

an excerpt from my first post:

"i shall embrace my fate as a pilgrim, tethering myself loosely to this one stationary website...like a kite, i guess. tethers are great because they help you remember where you're from, and that the wind will not always carry on so forcefully...they are a hope that someday you will be reeled back in."

and in the meantime, i bake. today is irish soda bread made with white whole wheat flour, bob's 10-grain cereal and flaxseed...

you gotta love the irish for the crosses in their bread

i see you over my open book

i see you over my open book

folded in half

still in the chair

the floor a desk

each hand

playing each your toes

biting your thumb

over careful lines

and feet of space

which is rolled over itself again

until you find me out

i see you over blighted leaves

crowded with hope

glorious, prone,

fissuring laughter

surrendered pause

and will

for they are yours-

these rights to linger

trying not to be afraid

like you

for you

as you find me out

grace

tuesday, 

the sweet and commendable ian returned from his long voyage on the sea...  

bearing a grin on his face and a 25 lb bag of Bob's Red Mill whole wheat pastry flour on his broad shoulder.

Yesterday, 

by the end of a surprise visit from jinell, 8 or 10 grocery bags full of food presented themselves on my kitchen counter as an anonymous retaliation to my current financial strain.  someone bought me food out of the kindness of their heart and God's, and sent it with jinell as a phantom donor.  it was totally stuff i would eat too- healthy this, vegetable that, white whole wheat the other thing.  there were even a couple chocolate bars  (*drool****).

Yesterday, 

by the end of the day, i was called to schedule an interview for today for a job at the rocky mountain chocolate shop downtown.

Yesterday,

i learned of the salvation of a friend.  the tears of his surrender making the air redolent with the furious love of the crucified one. 

today, 

i am fueled by the stern and sagacious proverbs, who redden my face with conviction and send me seeking back to the arms of a God of grace.

pigeon post

i dont know what to say

so you send me postcards

and joke about homing pigeons

and how ginger is a fine spokesman, indeed.

see robin? i'm trying to be disciplined :D

here's a little 8x10er  i did today-

something about poppies...morning...i'm still thinking of a title.

the stems are phrases from an old book.

(detail)

update on the yarrow painting: 

sara said she had been coveting it for days, so i sold it to her!  

this painting i'll sell for 25 dollars (or trade for something cool) in case you're interested.

you're right, janelle...i should get some kind of etsy thing going...later maybe.

seeing yarrow

being jobless does funny things to you...

this time its a painting of the yarrow flower.  love love love yarrow.

i have a vision of doing a whole series on the yarrow flower, but my visions are usually based on the fictitious strength of the disciplined side of me.

it is the stuff of faery tales.

(yarrow detail)

there's nothing about this painting that's original, really, but i had a good time doing it.

aaaand....this is the mint i'm drying for tea on the clothes line in sara's backyard.

aaaaand...this is the biscotti i made this morning: 3 forms of ginger.  fresh, crystallized and powdered.

i have been reading matthew 6 lately.

over and over and over.

the fig tree in the backyard is fruited half-way, 

finding water somehow through her ancient root fingers.

and though i have carefully watched,

i have not seen the birds building storehouses yet

nor the garden tremble in toil

the why: an addition to my previous post

so the question is why.

why quit coffee?

i know coffee isnt good for you.  i've known this for a long time but in faithful adoration to my treasured brew have not been willing to face the facts.  love thinks no evil.

i was doing some yard work for a lady on wednesday, and on thursday my wrist hurt really bad...i thought i had really messed it up.  and i got to thinking about WHY a person my age would be experiencing a body that is MIA as far as holding itself together under only slightly more stressful activities than normal life.  

and then i thought back to my favorite morning love...and how it leaches calcium and other minerals out of one's bones...and how my dear old mom's gene contribution left me with a nice brittle frame for this body i'm in... a how i dont have any health insurance.

ya.

i just think it's time.

it doesnt mean i wont social drink the stuff.  i mean, seriously.  i have certain friends that will only be my friend if i drink coffee with them, which is fine by me to be sure.  i'm definitely not above that mindset.

but the whole acid headache addiction thing...tut tut.

i must live with open eyes, so that i CAN make it to the age of 87 (or sooner) where i WILL, at that point, do whatever i feel like which will include gallons of coffee.

so rest assured, loved ones.  it is a valiant battle.

lonesome coffee cup

i cant believe i'm saying this, but i'm going to try to quit coffee.

i know, i know.  you've already decided i cant do it.  well, you know what?

you might be right.

BUT

there's something to be said for giving such a sad state of caffeine-free humanity your best shot

(hee hee...shot...never mind.)

and i already have a headache from my half caff situation of this morning...

so you can officially feel welcome to pray for me.

:)

but i swear, if i make it to the age of 87, it'll be coffee breakfast lunch and dinner from there on out.

goodbye, my sweet, acidic, calcium robbing panacea...know that you are my favorite habit i've ever tried to quit...we shall meet again when my knees are in the Jordan and maybe i'll let you row me to other side.

Just Do Something

today i have a treat: my friend mo is a guest author on my blog.

she graduated with an english degree at cal poly, so be sure to judge her accordingly (just kidding mo :)

I want to buy a thousand copies, stand on the corner of Higuera and Garden, and kindly hand one to every single person aged 18 to 30 who passes by.  Of course, I might hand them to some people over the age of 30, especially if they happen to be male.  I am talking about a wonderful book that I read two days ago called "Just Do Something."  It is quite timely, especially the part that encourages guys to seek wisdom, get a job, and get married sooner rather than later.  A very necessary encouragement to those of us in the "tinkerer" generation who love Jesus and are trying to live our lives for Him and for each other, rather than ourselves.  So go by a copy for yourself and everyone you know who is sitting around trying to find God's perfect purpose for their life, paralyzed with indecision and fear that they will somehow make the wrong decision. It worked for me. Okay, so I'm still unemployed, but I have serious plans to move...hey, can you blame me? I'm a tinkerer and after all, I'm only 23.  

martin has a crack

yep, my martin has developed a crack.  right down the front center of it.  seriously: whose guitar just CRACKS?  whose MARTIN guitar just cracks?

sigh.

sometimes your good friends just fall apart.

we must forge on.  

"sleeping diagonally"

i appreciate the fact that there are a lot of things about God and being human that are mysterious.

like the latter half of this verse in psalm 139:

"when i awake, i am still with You."

i've been a christian for, like, ten years and i still dont understand why David randomly throws this stray conclusion in among his musings of how numerous and precious God's thoughts are to us.

i do have some ideas though-

the phrase "i am still with" means "again and again, repeatedly: an action, hardly intermitted, is repeatedly begun anew."   like breathing maybe.

lovely, right?  

my awareness of You becomes fresh all over again.

but i just think it's weird that he makes the implications that he does in this verse.  what does sleep or wake have to do with God staying or going?  it still speaks to me though, deeply, as good poetry should- maybe because the implied conclusions of our own thought processes really are this odd.  

the only idea i can picture in my mind is this:

two seconds into your newly acquired consciousness for the day your mind is pummeled by the fact that you've got to be late for something.  Seconds number three to five of your consciousness then is spent in INSTANT PANIC choking down a gasp while reaching for your clock/cell phone to figure out-for-the-love-of-crimini  what time it is.  

dont worry.

its 6 am.

you dont have work till 8.

you were stressed for nothing.

in the summer time the sun comes up really early, remember?

you let out a sigh from the gasp you were holding in and instantly relax your entire being in full body relief.

maybe thats the experience that David was talking about- not in the physical sense so much, but (and here's where the poetry comes in...dont be afraid...poetry is good....gooooood...nothing to be worried about) in the sense that when something slumbering inside you jolts to life in instant panic, it wonders if this whole time it was sleeping alone and what might have happened to it unawares while it was dozing on the job.

and we all know how rational a newly awakened anything is:

"maybe i missed Him...maybe He got tired of waiting and left...Maybe he gave up on me...Maybe i'll never get Him back....Maybe i screwed up my own life by ceasing to be aware of Him for a while and now its all over..."

"maybe" is a cruel word, full of fear.

and in the panic we gasp and reach for the indicator that will tell us if He is still there...His hand, His face perhaps.  and our hand touches something solid and familiar and warm and our body gives itself permission to lay off the adrenaline.

and in David's world, this is an again and again thing- like some people's compulsive habit of checking for their keys to make sure they didnt lock them in the car.  

and every 

every 

every 

single time

i realize You are still there...

i didnt screw up for good...

i didnt lose the one thing i have worth living for in You...

i didnt sleep alone after all.

cas mcshady

view from van Gogh

-or-

"i wear my suuunglasses at night"

dang.  i have too much time on my hands.

last final tomorrow!

San-Remy

i wish i would have made toast this morning.

the coffee is shuffling a geriatric pace through my blood and has spitefully neglected the region of my brain.  the morning is a promise of cooler, normal weather- like a last meal before execution.

"here ya go.  here's some comfort before the heat.  drink your coffee while its still cold enough to enjoy it."

we walk like musical instruments across our second story college apartment, lovingly referred to as The Tree House.  it must be like listening to a Balkan garbage can tuba band from the apartment beneath us.

and last night, when i dared to play guitar in the delicious gloaming of the warm night out on our shared  porch, the neighbors opened their window to listen, saying when the noise bleeds through the walls they quiet down and eavesdrop.  

and today, i am Abraham all over again.  at least in his beginning sense.  "here's for today, Abraham: go.  dont try to understand or plan.  just go and live."  permission and command.  command and permission.  

It reminds me of driving across the salt flats when i was 14 and we were almost out of gas so we couldnt listen to the radio or feel conditioned air.  

it reminds me of lying in bed when i was 18 years old the night before i left for bible college, wondering.

it is blank canvas, picking the colors in my mind...wishing You would pick them for me.  my imagination is not a long distance runner.

van gogh eating yellow ochre oil paint at San-Remy.  a childish wish to take the color into himself.

by this time next week, the long dark dream of chico will be over.  i want to lay my head on a rock and live somewhere between esau and a withered hip socket- watching the ladder carry traffic from Him to me.

"surely the Lord is in this place and i knew it not."

mute

it would almost be easier to talk to You if You were only half listening

like everyone else

like i assume You are

and me with my new type of perjury

lying thickly to the teary child face

still poised on Your knee

still attached to me

but sometimes, faintly

i know i've slipped away from the cruel falsehood

of Your diverted attention

and arrive breathless from fleeing

i cant remember what i came here to say 

now that i believe 

in Your nearness

but how can anyone be awkward around You?

how can anyone feel at a loss with You?

maybe i didnt lose my words and my thoughts

maybe i just dont need them.

finally surprisedly willingly confined in what i came for

realizing that it was 

just 

and simply

You 

this whole time

the parking meter i drew that day

parking meter in ball point pen.

what a symbol of frenzied, restricted time this thing is... kinda like my time here i think.  try and try to make it beautiful and its still just a parking meter, counting time, gray and metallic, void of person or passion.

i have grown exceedingly discouraged with the course of my life right now.  i don't see the point of getting twelve grand into debt over an art degree.  

pray for me if you think about it.  

the brotherhood of man

"can i see what you were drawing?" came a voice from beneath the shaggy blonde haired head that had been sitting at the small table to my left since i started the picture.  he had come in from sitting outside where i had walked past him a quarter hour before into the coffee shop.  i had noticed him because i always notice shaggy people who mean to be shaggy- they have the look of a forest animal so proud of its winter coat that it will stand unflinchingly in the snow.  maybe its a hippy thing deep inside me trying to find my own kind.

"ya, sure," i said furtively.  good thing i had been drawing something worth looking at this morning...its not always like that.  i never know if its a scrimmage or a game day with drawing.

today, it was the parking meter batting its flashing zero eyes at me from just outside the window.  today would be working on tones with a blue ball point pen.  an emaciated hippy girl with a half-sleeve tattoo and a nervous cigarette flounced spasmodically in and out of my line of vision of the meter as she talked to her two seated friends outside.

holding my drawing up awkwardly and probably crookedly from his perspective, i held it up long enough for him to say, "i like it."  

"what are YOU doing?"  

"planning my day," the shaggy head answered pleasantly.  

i glanced quickly at his tattered notebook written all over with sloppy male handwriting: one doesn't look too long at personal thoughts.

"everyday i try to just sit and think about what would make up a totally amazing day- what i would REALLY want to do that day.  after i write it down and get it all out on paper, i go about my usual life and feel a little better about what happens."

"do some of your 'amazing day' things ever happen?" i asked as i packed up my sketchbook to leave for class.

"o ya," he assured me with a quick smile which i didnt take the time to enjoy.  i always wish for random people to talk to me and then i get all flustered when they do.

"well, i hope you have an amazing day," i said sincerely.

"i hope you do too," he answered in the same truthfulness.

"thank you," i muttered as i walked out the door to my own waiting day, taking with me a shared part of his.

ps.  the parking meter sketch will come later.  had to turn my sketchbook in for class.

aunty cas

my friend jen has a new baby bird-- silas jude.

i've never held a baby this small before!

cas, silas and his mum.

i'm in love :)

you can take the girl out of humboldt, but...

a guy with dreds who i was sitting behind at a cafe.  i love the one bead he has on that one dred. 

tree study at bidwell park

new

hug.

-painting on raw canvas

come home.

-acrylic glazing project

day.

(i am an art major for at least one reason: how painting stuff like this takes you back to 3rd grade)

-modeling paste exercise

night. (bad photo colors on this one, as usual.)

-modeling paste exercise

some wisdom

dont fart in front of the oscillating fan

(unless you really mean it)

:D