not there

I'm not there. I'm here. Right here in sunny, crowded Phoenix Arizona. 68 degrees today and Richard, who is in 2nd grade, promised when I asked him, that he would not bounce in class tomorrow. He will bounce, but that is okay, too.

Where do I want to be? Lately not here... but looking at this spectacularly beautiful picture I know, not there, either.

Sunday

Already I am thinking about next weekend. My sister will be here. She flies in on Wednesday and I will pick her up, but take her to my parents house where she will stay until Friday after school when I will pick her up and bring her to my house.

It is Sunday and the dishwasher is running through it's cycles, the shades are pulled, the kitchen is cleanish, tomorrow's lunch is packed and ready to slip into my bag. Tomorrow I start a Rio Salado on line class. 45 hours of SEI for anyone that is interested. I won't have much time to devote to this class the first week... and the first week of an online class are always the most difficult for me, finding out where everything is, what the expectations are. But when it is done, it's done.

Told Katie I would come to dinner on Tuesday and see her newly stained concrete floor. I need to get in for an oil change this week and discovered a new coffee shop today on 59th Ave north of Union Hills called Next - I have three different scarves started and two bags and need to just finish something.

It will all be okay though. I made a really excellent dinner tonight and February 14 is just over a month away ... you are thinking Valentine's Day, right... but that is not it... on or around February 14 the weather changes and suddenly it is no longer winter, but spring. I can feel myself getting ready for spring.

distracted

My dad gave me three navel oranges yesterday. I've eaten one. His orange trees and grapefruit tree don't have much this year.... do you think they are conserving because of the economic downturn?

I've been distracted. Not on track. I think, in many respects, I don't know where my track is... but that is the bigger picture. Right now I am thinking more in terms of the smaller picture.

For instance, when I decided to take the above picture this afternoon, my camera told me it had no memory card. I threw the card away. I know I did. I took it out and gave it to the Ritz camera folks and they developed some pictures for me and gave me the pictures and an envelope back... I imagine the memory card was in there. In the envelope. But I have thrown the envelope away, given the pictures to my mom and daughter. By the time I got the pictures my mind was no longer on the memory card... it was on something else. Who knows what. Anyway, good thing I have a low memory, came-with-the-camera, card that was still in the box.
Bummer.

Today on the way back from the grocery store I got distracted by the quality of light on an elm tree(it just glowed), and while driving lately I get distracted by other things I see and catch myself not driving defensively, like you must in this town... dangerous!

I never was a linear kind of person. My mom has always blamed that on my being a Gemini... but now, at 59, my brain has become this floating mass of thoughts, ideas, and memories that merge and flow, slip and slide and I can't seem to get things to slow down enough to get hold of anything.

Today I was juried into an art coop. I'm like the grandma there. Silver hair, cut short, in an among all these 20 and 30 somethings. I will work at not telling them their music is too loud for me (and not really my style). Maybe I'll learn to like what they listen to... I'm going to practice that. I gave them my spiritual direction card (one of the guys asked if I had a card or a name I wanted to go by) and they did not miss a beat. Told me I could use the back room for spiritual direction. Acceptance. I've never experienced acceptance before. What a gift.

I need to ask my daughter to take about a dozen pictures of me in hopes that one will look decent enough for me to change the picture out in this blog. A kindergartner said to me Friday, "your hair is turning white!" oooooya....

One week back at work. All my art projects are going well, doing some things I've never done before or done, but with different age groups. It has been a struggle but exciting, too. I'm getting some of the stuff I ordered with the grant money and it is so much fun to pull it out and see what it will do. But, but, but I can tell that I am not there... the minute the kids walk out of the room my mind flits somewhere else and I have to lasso it back, tie it down, so I can get a lesson plan written, or set up for the next session.

I spent part of my day making tags and pricing my things for the coop. I'm putting them in on the 19th and paying my part of the rent. I don't really care about the money. I just really want to cover my expenses and the cost of my yarn habit... and I'd like to be open to teaching a workshop - art and spirit ... I'd like to say studio, studio, studio... and breathe some life into that.

Did I say the girl who invited me to join the coop is an elementary art teacher, too? She has straight hair... I think I would have been a different person if I'd had straight hair.

Isn't life wonderful and unexpected? Where will this crazy road lead me next?

I want to hang my head out the window and yell, I have no map! But maybe no one does (I hope Barack Obama has one). Maybe I should just quit worrying and turn this computer off and go make some pad thai, eat, and then curl up with a fire and my knitting.

Peace & Hope