Now looking forward

What kept coming to me over and over as I went through my images was how much time collapses on itself. I am saving images on Instagram and looking at them again all the time. I also do this on Pinterest, not as often, but often enough. In so doing I saw, with the older saved images how many things are still the same. It doesn't matter that they may be new materials, new models whatever...it is all frenetic, it says the same thing, look at me, look at me. It is new because I saw them a long time ago for example. It is so funny. Suddenly looking at past, old images feel like new, present stuff. That tells me that I don't have to feel that sense of rushing about trying to make things look just so. Of course it doesn't change having responsibilities and deadlines. But it does help me step back for a moment and embrace everything as having them around me as inspiration. Do, Do,DO also chimes in my head. That's a contrast to not rushing...the DO is an adreneline rush of excitement about direction. It tells me to continue as I am. It also speaks to being confident. Being happy, being kind, being mindful...being positively conscientious. It's like saying , look, that was the past and the past continues to happen and you know that you've gome through stresses and losses and you are now here. Where do you want to go next? In many ways, that is an honor and priviledge in itself. My point is to remember and to feel its embrace and to give my best to it.

Looking back

Yesterday I was looking into old course outlines because of a past student who barely came to class now wants to again querry his grades. As I was doing so I came across a cache of images from baby pictures and visits to China. I look back at these things from time to time. Yesterday was a little different. I think that it may be because of how much longer that past now is. A lot of the photographs of things I found online and experiences I recorded, I was aware of some of the chatter of that time. I recalled vaguely the things that meant so much. Also, I see how much my taste is staying the same. There are things that I just like and I repeat my interest over and over again, even if I have never seen the images before. It also showed me repeatidly that as much as things change and so much time moves on quickly,I can also state that I have learned that it is extremely, extremely important to just do the things you long to do. Do them. As I looked at pictures particularly of dearest loved ones who have now gone, my heart ached in missing them even more than the daily memory that still stings. I felt so grateful for what at the time looked like going through the internet just looking for inspiration. I now see all of it as working on plans. I found whole projects unfinished and I enjoyed them anew. I even considered whether they should be done now? Or I enjoyed knowing that the effort was for then and then only. It was a very good experience for me to give myself the present of the past.

heat,hot heat

The heat every day is crazy! The tiredness you feel from going outside and walking around is so draining that when you get back indoors you just feel too spent to move. However, there is everything too do. I am suggesting to my daughter that we take walks when the sun goes down to give us some form of exercise apart from what we do every day. We have not started to do so as yet, as today it rained very heavily, stopped and rained again and again at the most inopportune moment. I am nonetheless grateful that I do not have to go out in the elements on Friday because of the yearly spraying of the school. When I was a child, my school chums and I used to spend idle time wondering about hyperthetical questions like, what's worse, death by fire or by freezing.The answer is actually which one will make you pass out and expire before it seems painfully grizzly.Things are no longer as hypothetical.

Waw

I have been so swamped that I have not been able to write in awhile.So much to say! Where to begin? I am back where I started a few months ago. My ex-husband has travelled again. This time my daughter and I have the opportunity presented to us to spend 17 days in Italy. I love the prospect but the hiccup is the timing. However, who wouldn't want to find themselves figuring out how to juggle something like that? I always write how much this time of the year demands of me and this year is no different. However, I am not usually working on a mini and then a maxi symposium and exhibition, an installation and hopefully an Art Market in December. Of course I would also not have it any other way. This time, being back here, because it is the second time, the learning curve is improved.I will not deny that driving this time is something I wonder about because of the weather. However, we have plans, b, c and d. ALso, my cousin's wife, her friends and my neice are sending some beautiful images from Puglia.This strums at my heart because the time is getting closer and closer to the window in which my daughter and I could actually go.