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06.05.08indoor track & field
Daily, Ford, Home (1)
I have a lot of Dad in my makeup but I was never a track star. And then there were my grandfathers, who ran on athletic scholarship against the likes of Jessie Owens. But I ran without much mojo one season in grade school before deciding to just stick to ballet and pirouette clearly within the boundaries of my own security.Last August we visited home and Dad hung with the boys quite a bit. It was raining most of the time and I came home one day, sopping wet, to find them watching the decathlon and practicing the high jump onto the sofa. Dad had them both in perfect form, something I couldn’t have taught, and they boys were totally into it, spring-loading themselves in playful arcs across the living room. It was awesome.
I can’t tell you how to perform the proper pole vault, but Ford had his own method and was in the zone already when I arrived on the scene yesterday. I gave him a few pointers but decided ultimately to just let him figure out what worked best for him. I sat on the floor and watched him in my amazement, deciding that, at least in spirit, we may have another hopeful athlete in the family.
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06.03.08Reliving fossils
Daily, Home (2)You can’t relocate a basket of forgotten plastic dinosaurs in this house without a notice by the boys. I spent Sunday rearranging half the house in anticipation of Dwight’s return next week. Gone are the piles of books, the boys walking upon bookpiles, the books stacked upon every available surface. Now, we have bookshelves insulating the walls, thick with knowledge and already collecting dust. But now you can see the dinosaurs. And here they are, living the plastic dinosaur dream, moments before asteroid touchdown.
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04.09.08
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04.02.08the pace of things this week
Chas, Daily, Home, Photos (3)
, originally uploaded by young@art.
I just posted midspring pictures to Flickr so that, later, when the hot dry blasting winds of summer parch the soil, I can look back to all this green. But you see that background there? That fuzzy, blurry background would indicate the speed of things around here. Actually, make that warp speed.
BUT. Tonight is date night. Black Keys in the city! Not so much a pause but at least some glitter in blur. I’m wearing ma GOLD heels like a Roman goddess and I’m going to spend today running around the house looking or my glittery tights. So. I guess, expect more blur.
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01.29.08more fronts & fungi
Chas, Daily, Exploring, Ford, Home, SillyValley, Young @ Art (5)Sillyvalley was scoured clean again by another front and today, awestruck, we were witness to some kind of crazy glorious spectacle of snow-capped mountains atop the massive bowl of San Jose, all purple and crytallized behind the field outside the kitchen window, which is, for its part, cloaked in a riot of yellow mustard. I just didn’t know what to do with myself, standing there in the playground after school, staring at the immaculate horizon.
Then, as with all cold fronts, the sky started weeping. Under a rainbow we walked home and decided to hunt for mushrooms in the backyard under the oak canopy, savoring the last bit of afternoon light, regardless of the rain.
And what do you know? The rain stopped just long enough.
We gathered a handful of mushrooms, no idea what kind yet, just for something to draw or paint while I started a pot roast. I set a pan of opaque watercolors out on the table and gave a quick basidio-lesson and painting tutorial. They did all the rest.
Ford picked up a paintbrush:
And Chas got sleepy.
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01.05.08cabin fever
Daily, Ford, Home, Painting (7)
While the snow has enveloped most of the east coast, we here on the west coast are experiencing rain, in tides of wet sheets, throughout the final holiday weekend. Yesterday we were without power, but all systems are go today. The christmas tree inside glows steadily upon the manic face of cabin fever, who manifests itself in the form of one particular reckless imp, screaming like a V2 rocket on descent, fording (quite literally) puddles outside and back in again into the post-yule cosiness. He’s oblivious to inner sanctum, to either of us cerebral souls at guitar or computer, and instead vaults over sofas, boxes and amplifiers at breakneck speed.
There is one among us, tired of an arygle sweater, bringing the whole scene into sharp relief:
And the rain continues to pour, then abate, then weep again, the whole state of California in catharsis.
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01.01.08Cheers!
Daily, Damon, Home, Painting (4)In bed last night, the four of us baking like cornish hens between layers of flannel, we listened with sleepy ears to our quiet neighborhood as it came alive in hoots and hollers. Midnight lasted fifteen minutes, with laughter and cheers, firecrackers and booms resounding through the wooded foothills. But we lay there, in the dark, and I think I was the only one still awake, smirking at the ceiling in the dark. I started thinking about last year, when we were toasting the new year with packed bags, drunk at Polly and Evan’s, shooting bottle rockets in the middle of the road. When you have friends, you have a party. But last night, all of our resolutions to stay up, to record music and toast the new year quietly slipped out the back door. I think our livers are tired; they need a post-holiday holiday now.
I started painting over the break. The electric griddle in the studio is crowded with tin canfuls of colored wax, paintbrushes sprouting upwards like last year’s seedheads, fertile impetus to behold. I love the heady honey smell, the warmth of the medium. I can sit there at my desk, waiting for a painting to cure, and watch Damon through the glass wall as he plays guitar in the living room. He is recording an album of songs. The first thing in the morning, he gives Ford a lesson. Our house is a creative brew these days.
To myself I think, would I feel so fruitful in another life without my family, our children running circles around us? The frenetic spirit the kid’s provide the house weaves like rubber band through the fiber of my being, breaking the casts of old ideals and sprouting hopes that they will grow into creative young men without a clear path before them, save for strong conviction, brave heart and sensitive soul.
And what of resolutions for the new year?
Art, every day.
And this.Cheers to you and your families, that you may find the time every day to feed your soul. I wish that for everyone, not just this year but forever.
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07.19.07Well, it rained
Chas, Daily, Home (1)
The fates gave us rain, and we stayed at home pretending it was November. We went outside in the weepy drizzle and turned the sweet-smelling compost, added some red earthworms, and swung in the front yard all morning long.
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04.03.07On a lighter note:
Gardening, Home (1)I quickly hashed out what I wanted to accomplish with the gardens around the house. Here’s one nook:
Every surface area in the studio is overflowing with seed packets and logs and lists:
Of course, moving into an established garden already has its perks:
especially the lilacs, here in the kitchen and at my bedside table. I love the heady scent that lulls me to sleep.
You can see more photos of the garden on Flickr.
While you’re there, get a taste for some real garden planning in Montanaraven’s “Gardens: From Napkin Sketch to Reality” set. Then look at the hand tool that you can use to make eco-friendly plant pots using newspaper. I found them for sale online here (in the UK) and here (US) and I would love to have one for the kids. About $14.
These wooden pawn-looking tools are great and the children enjoyed planting purple coneflower seeds for our Austin garden using one last year at The Wildflower Center during the Spring kickoff. Fun stuff.
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03.14.07Full Tilt into Spring
Daily, Gardening, Home, Nature (2)
On the way home from the beach, I stopped by my favorite nursery in Half Moon Bay (who doesn’t have a website to google but I can give you directions, if you are interested) and bought plants. Not just any plants, but anything that could double its duty as both gopher proof and textural. So I chose a leaf in every shape: oval, circular, fusiform, serrated. And I picked up anything chartreuse and violet, wispy and hugging. In essence, I chose plants that not only worked double time but put in extra hours at playing off one another: purple huechera and silver helichyrysum, lenten rose and bronze fennel, waving yarrow and succulent prostrate sedum. They sit in congragation together on cardboard flats atop whiteplastic lawn chairs, in the shade of two towering cypress beside the house, waiting for me to finish digging vitality back into the cold earth.
A family of quail graze the ground beneath them, black and purple plumes gleaming in the afternoon sun, ebony bobbers wiggling like alien antennae atop their noggins. It’s hard not to grin every time they pass. That’s probably one of those beautiful things about Spring here, although for all I know the quail are permanent residents. But the Robin has started chattering at dusk with the scrub jays around the grapefruit tree’s birdbath, the frogs start peeping soon afterwards, and nothing sounds more like an American Spring, to me.
As you start to spend more time outside, maybe gardening, maybe taking a brisk walk, what sounds of Spring are ringing in the air around you?
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recent posts
- ladybugzes
- mapping my runs
- date nite
- It’s not just a marathon.
- indoor track & field
- Reliving fossils
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