it's always new, always something new

lovely rolls from the oven

I've been obsessed with authenticity without ever calling it such. The interest in "America" and "Americana" and my poetics that lack clarity, that only fall into vulnerability--all of this is some seeking towards what's real. My own personal struggle to differentiate story from non story; those many nights where I woke up thinking nothing was, in fact, real.

My own authenticity--for lack of a better description--is something I've walked away from, felt discouraged about. I've walked in and out of paths and paved sidewalks and detours. Now, a strange detour and the only thing to think is the same thought I've known all along--I'm still a teacher always walking away from that profession, that interest, and that challenge. As if it would be too settling, to settled.

My current phase points me back to my previous phases and I might be ready this time.

away and away and away and back again

It seems to be the theme of this summer--perhaps of this moment or stage where I am--to retreat and re-emerge and retreat again. A bit hermetic.

Luckily, I have beautiful friends like Sheena who tolerate my back and forth, my often sideways.

Sheena and I chalked together--kind of like a couple of kids, which is exactly what we should be doing: acting like kids.

Here's Sheena making our cement square white. She's a pro: remembering the roller and tape to keep our square tight. I brought water, which is about all I contributed. Oh, and the book with our image...though I had to drive back to Ithaca to get it. Again, Sheena's a real pro. 

The kids who were here really hogged the white paint, so we watered ours down a bit and then watered ourselves off--it was hot. Hotter on cement. It seemed to get hotter and hotter as the day went on.

This is about when we started wanting snow cones and ice pops. 

Our finished product was awesome...I think. People in Elmira kept trying to guess who the image was of. When we said, "It's a rhetorical question" they still guessed. John Lennon was a popular guess. Also, Gidget. Apparently there is a cartoon from the 40s or 50s that it also resembles. Rhetorical didn't go over well. In our future project, we'll go with something more mainstream.

Hard to see our original image, but there it is in the book on the lower left of the image. Stencils made before hand or graphing would have helped, but planning wasn't something we did--didn't seem like a summer possibility to really plan. This is an "organic" rendition. 

I think it took three showers to get the chalk off. 

It's usually appropriate, after so much exhaustion, to listen to music and clap. 

Overall, chalk is kind of a hard medium to work with. We should have ground it up and mixed it with water to "paint" with the chalk...it would have given us more precision.

I am always reminded of my strong desire to be a visual artist and my lack of knowledge. It's hard to see things in your head and think they can be brought out of the head and onto some other platform. Easier, for me, with words. I don't struggle as much with poetry, but with visual arts, the idea is always an idea and often not translatable to image.

I do "hear" the page or have that synesthetic tendency to think the page is asking for words, for precise placement of words. I think sounds when I see image. But when I think image and keep thinking image, I don't go much further than thinking the image--sometimes breaking it into parts in my head or expanding the image, but never knowing what to do with it.

try again

Okay world, I am trying again.

It's been suggested that I might lack focus, that I might bounce from thing to thing to thing. I can't help but think about an essay I wrote awhile back about trying not to be a writer--knowing that it wasn't taking me anywhere and trying, desperately, to be anything else but a writer. Of course, I fell back to what I was and who I am.

And it happens again. I walked away from writing--teaching writing--and I'm somewhere else where I feel kind of nowhere or kind of out of here...there...or where. Out of place.

I don't mean to bounce, wish I had a more sensible skill or a way to make sense.

I look back to the children's books and think, "Yes, that's it." So I'm trying again, trying again to write. The children's books need illustrations. But they're ready and I think this might be something I could do that doesn't keep me worried and walking away from what I already do.

So the hunt begins to find children's literature publishers...

4th of July--minus the fireworks

We spent the weekend in Watkins Glen. Time on a boat, time with sparklers, and time with family...kind of perfect. We didn't see fireworks, but we did see time move diagonally--fast and slow at the same time.

I think we both really needed some time off of work, some time to really do nothing. We didn't even bring books and we left our cell phones in the tent. Even pictures, for the most part, we took with a polaroid camera. Everything was just a little bit different.

Rock garden.

Waterfalls and lagoons. A bit too easy to fall into.

Plant holder made from the old polaroid film container.