Morsels

Well, the bread worked more or less. Would I have liked my boules to be boulier, I mean higher? Yes… but the bread is crusty and has a nice sour taste that is not too sharp. I shall be making more and hopefully fitting it into my weekend routine. I have to admit to letting the second rising get a little attlepated by a slight distraction — I went to my neighbor’s beautiful garden and painted a pretty wretched painting. But it was a lovely day and she has the most amazing garden. Of course, she is a landscaper — she and her husband own Maple Landscaping. I was painting in front of a pond which has a pet turtle whose name I am blanking on but I promise was a very apt turtle name. This turtle comes when you call him. They had two but the other took off. My friend explained that the entire fence is turtle-proof (ie chicken-fenced) except for one gate which leads out to the front and then beyond across Lake Road and then, yes to the Great Lake.

Someone found the roaming turtle dead on the little beach the neighborhood tends together. I suppose he thought the bigger water was better. And I’m happy he made it across the road and that he actually got as far as he did. It must have been nice to see all that wonderful, wavy water. He was probably as surprised as I was when I first saw Lake Erie and discovered that you couldn’t see the other side!! He may have suffered from a little turtle heart attack. All that effort, all that desire and then everything is perhaps too wondrous to believe.

Now I’m feeling morose. Probably, actually because I’ve been reading Kennedy funeral coverage all day.

Tomorrow I’m going to make a huge batch of oatmeal/raisin/chocolate chip cookies (can you tell that Arthur is about to head off to college? Warning: Aggressive home-cooking on the horizon…)

It takes practice to be happy sometimes. Arthur literally breezed through this weekend having to go down to OU to see if he might like to transfer there and going to see the Diplo show last night. All in all I probably got in 4 hours of Arthur time. And now he is barrelling down 90 in his car, headed for Bennington and the rest of his semester. I just got back from Heinen’s and the weekly food shop, which is usually a relaxing, happy event — picking this and choosing that. But not today. I wandered the aisles with a very small list since I had just been there yesterday getting Arthur snacks for school. So I felt anxious, bereft and I could feel that little stone begin to lodge itself in my chest. I don’t mean to sound dramatic — it’s just that sometimes a mom gets sad when her kid takes off again.

Still, I wasn’t about to let that stone gain too much ground. And here’s the practice bit. It’s good to know a song or two that you have on your trusty i-pod so when you are finished with said errand and are heading back to the somewhat more empty house you can blast it just for yourself. I picked Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack and kicked that damn rock to the curb.

Yesterday, Arthur and I went to the first farmer’s market of the season and bought some lovely ground veal. I made these veal meatballs from Emeril (I subbed Tony Cachere’s for the spice mixture) and served them with fresh garlic and chive pasta from Ohio City Pasta. Nice to feed my boy. That’s another thing that makes me happy.

So does painting and I made sure to do some of that almost as soon as he pulled away.

So, bit of unsolicited advice. Know what makes you happy and DO it when you get a little sad. As long as it’s not self-destructive — scotch makes me happy, for example. You ought to do a lot of it.

Home from painting class last night and, as usual, my mind was in a swirl. It is hard to explain unless you have been in color’s thrall but there is an afterglow (I can’t think of any word more appropriate) that comes on after spending hours absorbed in the mixing and looking and laying on of the paint, stepping back. Mostly wishing for your brain (ok, my brain) to grow new synapses. But then, getting into my car and driving out of the parking lot, I was hyper-aware of the layers of shadows in the trees, the light on the lake. But not just the light on the lake, the purple, the gray, the maybe black-green.

I’ve been working on a picture of a pirogue in the river Sorgue that I took when we were in France. If I could find the picture in my photos I would post it.

Isle Sur La Sorgue

Well, obviously I managed that though not without some irritating bumps along the way. Why, is technology so mysterious?  Anyway, this is what I am painting. I remember walking along the river, boys ahead, Kinloch and Mary somewhere or other. We were all just taking in the pretty town, the market and working up an appetite. And the river was slowly coursing through, ducks barreling along, etc. I saw this boat and its neighbor door and was struck by the colors, the stillness of it all (though of course that water is never finished with its progress). Probably the owner of the boat had one color paint and that was that for the door and the boat. But to me, it still looks like a study in variations. Deliberately done.

So I have taken the image and it has now taken me on. Last night, I worked (with my teacher’s help) on the water which had stymied me. Puzzled me enough so that actually, I worked around it all night. Until at last it was time.  Now, I know water doesn’t mean blue or green but sometimes language gets entirely in the way of seeing a thing. It wasn’t until Jeff framed the water with paper, that I could pick out its grey, violet grey undertones. We mixed and I put it on the canvas and it was right. And that’s another thing…. I can ramble on here, get up in front of a group and opine, etc.. but start explaining a color mix to me, a little raw umber, a little cerulean blue, white a tiny, tiny bit of red and I am struck dumb. I literally had to repeat that aloud several times as if memorizing a phone number that I absoulutely needed (spoken like someone who grew up without cell phones where everything is so nicely stored and clicked).

So it’s not done but it’s on its way and I am looking forward so forward to tomorrow and working on it.