A January evening

It was too cold to do anything out of doors, the other basic chores - laundry, kitchen counters, wastebaskets, recycling - all were done. All that was left was the pile of  To-Be-Read on the desk. Well, that and about ten thousand other little things I have been avoiding, for example, the music CDs look like they were dropped on to the floor and thrown back up onto the shelves. They cry out for organizing (and dusting). There's a pile of photos I was supposed to Scan Next sometime before Christmas and there are four speakers on those CD shelves and only two are hooked up. I could go on.

I opted for the Read pile because I can scan a piece of paper quickly and file it or toss it. That went well for about three pieces of paper, a business card for a plumber -saved in the Contacts list, a coupon from Domino's -out,out, do not rest your eyes upon such, and a letter from the Co-op detailing the latest maintanence increase, filed. Then I picked up last year's calendar which I had laid on the Read pile because I wanted to have one more look at the pictures. The works are by Govinder, an artist about whom I know nothing except that I am drawn to the lines and whimsy in the art, the Big Blue Cat I described in this blog a few weeks ago, there's a skinny oddly shaped dog named Tumble Down Dick and more cats. Square, boxy cats in red, yellow and black, a cat (I think) named Ben with kind of a scaly snakelike patch of fur, the huge Mr. BIG and finally a terrific horse named Sundance. I like them all.

Three times I tried to throw the calendar away. Twice it wouldn't fit in the overstuffed basket by my desk and it ended up on desk's  corner, the third time I was headed for the trash chute outside my door when I looked up at the beam in my living room. It was a blank slate waiting.

I had thought about putting something on that beam over  the years I've lived here, I just never really thought about it, if you know what I mean and here, suddenly, was the answer to a question barely asked. I got the scissors, I got the silver push pins, I got the stepstool. I cut up the calendar month by month. The strange thing was then that I saw some of the art as if I had never seen it before. Here was a rabbit, Pippin. And what may be an elephant and some more horses which up until I looked again had seemed to me to be some kind of worms dancing. Nope, horses. Okay.

The skinny dog went in the middle and I added each page to each side until the space was filled with color and shapes, scaly and furry and blue. The only piece which didn't fit was the one of the Doves of Peace. I have that up elsewhere where I can get a better look at it. 

Then I added a Klimt poster which had been standing in a corner of my bedroom for about four months waiting for me to decide if I wanted to put new glass over it. No glass. 

So here is the finished look:

That's it. No big idea here. Or maybe there is. I kept thinking that whenever I see blank spaces in my life, it's good to fill them with inspiration. 

More, not much more, but more @ http://atthewindow.blogspot.com/

Years

Some years seem to have longer days than others.

Some seem to be missing months and moons.

There are the other years but these miss-shaped
miss-timed
times
stay too near us until we tell their story.

Le Chat Bleu

I'm inside my apartment wearing a woolen hat, outside my window, it's starting to snow. I don't need to be wearing this hat, it's toasty enough in here, I guess, but I'm going through several transitions today. First, I just got back from Florida early, early this morning. The flight home was bumpy and traumatic enough for me to be near prayers and gave me greater resolve, now that I am not at the bottom of that ship's canal which borders the Newark Airport runway, to make this a very good year. Good.

Second, I got on the scale this morning and it was not good. Despite running some miles every day while on vacation, there was considerable counterbalancing going on which resulted in a new gain of bulk. I now believe that carrying a Ziploc baggie of M&Ms while on a run is not a good idea. I repent.

Third, I've got all this unpacking to do. All these odd items I fail to recognize as I push the woolen hat back off on my brow. Here's a sleeveless shirt with a picture of a humuhumunukunukuapuaa (that's pronounced...oh never mind.). I didn't get to wear this shirt this year; there was really only one really good beachy day with nice hot hot feelings coming up from the sand and young girls coated with enough oil to prepare them for either the sun rays or anyone with a large enough saute pan to make "Bikini Trio A Flambe".  What's this in this plastic bag? Sandals. Does anything look more like an alien object than a pair of sandals held up to the window light as outside snow slants by and the wind shakes the naked dead branches of the trees?

I know they are not dead. I'm depressed. This morning I hung up the new kitchen calendar (zen sayings and flowers) and leafed through last year's (art work by Govinder including one very odd looking blue cat.). I usually like looking through the old calendar. Look, here's the Sunday you set aside to go to MoMa. Here's the boatride in July, the dinner in May, but this year, I seemed to have skipped writing anything down except when I ordered the new water filter filters and three weekends when the A train would not be running.

There are the 351 emails to sort. (His finger hovers over the DELETE ALL command. If it's really important they will call or email again, right?) I need to balance the checkbook and check the credit cards online for any weird charges....(What? Exactly $15.70 two days apart at the market? Oh, yeah. Papers, Bagels and Butter....sigh) I'm going to scan through all the sunset pictures and the wave pictures and the pelican pictures. I have to sweep up this little pile of sand.

I'm going out in a little while to get some groceries, but first an hour's nap and an attempt to remember the little bursts of vertigo induced terror from last night. They made me feel so good when they stopped.