this year has been a shitty one, for me for sure, me and my first world problems. covid and trump seem to be in the comprehension into action phase and the beginning of the ending happening; can’t be soon enough. my new little river house waits for me until the ridiculous lawyers (male) play their silly games and practice expensive-and-non-communication, while the buyer (me) and seller and realtors (all women) are held in thrall to them and their shenanigans. can you tell i’ve had it up to the gills? if i had gills. maybe i should have gills…

if i did have gills the great blue heron who in death left their skull for my partner to find to gift me (now, of course, packed in a box), a momento mori perfect for me, that heron could have had me for lunch. there’s no such thing as free lunch says stuart brand. he’s right. my last covid test was bad she said on the phone. bad, i asked? yes, she said. i said what does that mean? she said the test was bad (more emphatically). it didn’t work. what, i asked? something went wrong in the lab she said. may i reschedule? now?? no, you must call the number, the one which i called for two + weeks trying to get the ‘bad test’ scheduled… again, first world problems. so i’ve been contemplating waiting, the immeasurable waitingtime i’ve passed in my life. how i seem to waste that waiting recently, until this week. i made shifu, wrote, imagined, walked and, i’ll admit, cried some. it’s been that kind of winding down. i used to fill up my waiting with handwork, time to resurrect that good habit. now i think about how we don’t teach kids to think, to (in teacherspeak) problem solve. we need more artists.

november. almost out of scorpio and into sagittarius. my birth time. locking winter in, now that skiing hurts the injured/arthritic knees it’s still me out in the snow and ice and cold. being there. i’ve got an online semester class this spring, so i have some learning to do, some hope that i will be motivated by a new challenge. i’ve taken a few online classes now, and it’s time to begin new ways of working and being and passing on the knowledge (such as it is. until we can do a better job of being. so here we all are.

outdoors the milkweed is field retting, no longer the fresh, more stiff fibers here. i haven’t had much oomph to collect this fall, as i have so much to move soon, but i watch those pods, marking the places where milkweed waits. i watch the big coyote prints on my road, knowing i might be watched in turn. i watch and wait. i also remember, remember the march morning i skied out on 18 inches of hard packed snow, pulling milkweed stalks, stuffing my pack basket, and skating the load home to peel, icy wet, on my kitchen floor before the kids got home from school. that retted milkweed made spectacular gray paper.

november is time to reflect, to put away the year, to thank, to watch dreams of poems and pictures asking to be noticed, to wait. practicing the skill of waiting is something i can do now. wait and think. and make some tiny notes. i was the recipient of a surface design association professional development grant this month, a welcome and helpful incentive (as cash always is) to finish a book i have been dreaming of. there will be letterpress. and perhaps to finally bring this book below, woven landscape, into the world. once i unpack.

collagraph on my belgian flax paper, and white commercial stock for my edition woven landscape