Sigh of Relief...

An audible sigh of relief...I have just finished a six week summer session having took two needed classes. It was such a push because I was already exhausted at the end of the spring semester which ended in May. The following week the summer session began...so very little breathing space. I took a Painting Workshop, having taken Painting I, this was a needed elective and spent the time painting from a model and focusing on the figure. I also took my third(out of four needed) art history class, 20th Century Art. It was an intense 16 week course squeezed into 6 weeks, my head and body still ache...two quizzes, midterm, final, and a 6 page research paper, oh, and let me not forget all the reading for the class and the ten sources for the paper...exhaustion.



I have been going to school to earn a second degree in studio art with my concentration in painting, and have been going straight through for a year and a half now. Last summer I did both sessions. The work load is intense...so much so that I would never have believed it if I were not doing it for myself. So I am some what flat out tired but have accomplished a lot. For the summer I have been told to start right in and paint everything and anything...find my interest, what do I want to know more about, explore and continue to study the work of other artists that I enjoy or maybe those I do not enjoy and look at why. I have also been told to draw, draw, and draw some more, experiment, take risks. So I have my work cut out for me for the next 7 to 8 weeks.

So I am excited to begin after doing what professors have wanted now I can do what I want with what I have learned. I have weaving to do also for gifts and for sale. I owe a certain bride her towels before her wedding, and I have a garden screaming for attention...well the house appears to be screaming as well...just want to do the things I have not had the time to do. I have a very busy semester coming up in the Fall...



So for now just drinking my coffee, savoring the morning, and eavesdropping on the birds.
Lest one thinks all in my world is just about school and I have nothing else on my list of things to do...couldn't be further from the truth...a chronically ill husband, weaving to do, adult children with joys and problems that come up on daily basis of their own that I am either joyful or worried about...life just comes with it's own baggage but I do my best to wake each morning with a sence of hope and gratitude for what I am able to do by which reality usually hits by noontime...so today I prepare canvases, plant some seeds, listen to what ever child( they are always your children ) that needs their mom's ear, and take my husband to the doctor and maybe get to walk my very lonely dog and breath...

Have a great day and thanks for reading...

Lost and Found...

Her Grave

by Mary Oliver

She would come back, dripping thick water, from the green bog.

She would fall at my feet, she would draw the black skin

from her gums, in a hideous and wonderful smile----

and I would rub my hands over her pricked ears and her cunning elbows,

and I would hug the barrel of her body, amazed at the unassuming perfect arch of her neck.

It took four of us to carry her into the woods.

We did not think of music,

but, anyway, it began to rain

slowly.

Her wolfish, invitational, half-pounce, her great and lordly satisfaction at having chased something.

My great and lordly satisfaction at her splash

of happiness as she barged

through the pitch pines swiping my face with her

wild, slightly mossy tongue.

Does the hummingbird think he himself invented his crimson throat?

He is wiser than that, I think.

A dog lives fifteen years, if your're lucky.

Do the cranes crying out in the high clouds

think it is all their own music?

A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you

do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the trees, or the laws which pertain to them.

Does the bear wandering in the autumn up the side of the hill

think all by herself she has imagined the refuge and the refreshment

of her long slumber?

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the

smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know

almost nothing.

Does the water snake with his backbone of diamonds think

the black tunnel on the bank of the pond is a palace

of his own making?

She roved ahead of me through the fields, yet would come back, or

wait for me, or be somewhere.

Now she is buried under the pines.

Nor will I argue it, or pray for anything but modesty, and

not to be angry.

Through the trees is the sound of the wind, palavering

The smell of the pine needles, what is it but a taste?

of the infallible energies?

How strong was her dark body

How apt is her grave place.

How beautiful is her unshakable sleep.

Finally,

the slick mountains of love break

over us.

From New and Selected Poems Volume 1

Amy has been gone 4 weeks today...I miss her terribly and still find it hard sometimes to believe she is gone but today I received a card my vet sent with caring kind words...totally unexpected and I was brought back to that day but tonight opened my book, New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1 by Mary Oliver to look at papers inside it only to find this poem and the first line that jumped out to me was: "A dog lives with you for 15 years, if you are lucky." And I was lucky...So after the surprise of that line, I read the whole poem, realizing she was writing about her own loss of a dog...amazing, I can always turn to Mary Oliver and she can express for me, through her own grief...to express for me even when that was not my intention, or even knew it was there to be read regarding the loss of her dog...I was actually looking for something I have lost track of and it belongs to the library, have not seen it sence the day Amy died...life is funny, you get what you need sometimes when you are least expecting it...the item is still missing.

It was so comforting to read comments yesterday...others coming up a long side and speaking a few words is so encouraging...thank you. Animal people are some of the best, kindest people...

Thanks for reading...have a great day.

Amy

This is Amy... she was a little 13" Beagle who was just shy of her 15th birthday. She had been a fixture in our home because she had been here as long as we were. Most people think about decorating their new home...I on the other hand just wanted a dog after years of apartment living...so I brought home a dog.

I said good bye to her on May 27, 2011...I had no idea I would be so moved by the passing of one little pup. She had changed from a terribly timid dog all her life(that is how she was born) to extremely funny, deaf, pushy old 'lady'. She begged, jumped on us for our food, and because of the deafness nothing scared her any longer. She just walked with an air of confidence she never had before. She was pretty funny.

Then all of a sudden her age caught up with her and she was dying...still can't go there. No warning, five days of denial, that's it...then she was gone. I did get to love her, hold her and even gave a bath to sooth her. But I do have funny, light hearted memories of her that I now allow to come out and comfort me. Like how she would forget about her terrible fear when it snowed and she would run and sail off the deck with beagle ears out straight like little wings along with her out stretched legs and land in the snow. Where that came from I will never know but being a snow lover my self I always enjoyed her response, that was always so out of character...



Maggie misses her, sometimes seems to be looking for her and has changed her napping spot as they always napped together. She always stays with one of us now and sleeps in my room. It occurred to me that Maggie had never been alone, she came here as a 7 week old pup 9 years ago and Amy became surrogate mom. And now she is gone...



Rest in Peace my sweet, funny Amy girl...I so miss that wise little face peering out at me from those dark seal eyes.

Thanks for reading...it has been a while I know.