the up side of down

I have been fighting the flu with endless cups of tea with lemon and honey, yummy soup, lots of my favourite chocolate, and hours and hours of sleep. And now I feel well enough to snuggle up with a book...

"Life, Paint and Passion, reclaiming the magic of spontaneous expression" by Michele Cassou and Stewart Cubley. Publisher Jeremy P Tarcher/Penguin NY. ISBN 0-87477-810-7

I opened it at random, a habit I have. That is how I found that paths are made by walking. Today I found this:

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that things are difficult. (Seneca).

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...and then I read a little more, and came back to the computer, because I wanted to add this. It reminds me of Sarah's great to be lost...

The great majority of artists are throwing themselves in with life-preservers around their necks, and more often than not it is the life-preserver which sinks them. (Henry Miller)

I think it is time to jump out of the life boat, paint for process, not product, for a while... somewhere deep inside me I am sure that, when I need to, I can swim.

faithful friend

Today I am moving slowly, fighting off the flu I think. No fever, just pain right through my spine. When I woke I was numb down one side so, despite no rash or fever, I cautiously checked for meningitis, remembering all the lectures I gave my teenagers, and everyone else's teenagers, as they headed for university hostels. If you are going to bed feeling unwell, tell someone.

All seemed to be well, so I moved a little more. I must have just gone to sleep in a strange position. Zacchi did his very best from the floor on the far side of the bed to tell me he was happy to see me moving, but if I hadn't moved, that might not have been enough. I sleep with my cell phone beside me, just in case. One night in January there was friendly debate about which of the gentlemen present at dinner I should call if I took ill in the night, the one who lived closer, or the (self-described) more reliable one? ... but no, I would call my female friend in the daffodil painting, because only she holds a spare set of keys to my house.

But it got me thinking about Zacchi, lying there watching him trying to get up to me. I don't pat him enough. He is a scruffy little Fizzgig, thinks he is a farm dog and finds smelly things to bring home, to roll in, to breathe all over me. He gets oily, and is always dirty, even two minutes after a bath. I sometimes scratch his wiry head, or comb his tangled coat, but I don't pat him enough. I wonder if that is why he pretends to be frightened of big dogs? So I will pick him up and cuddle him, carry him a while. Because when I do, he is in no hurry to get back down again.

Last week, in our patch, Zacchi's normal daily stretch of village, a young dad wanted his toddler to meet Zacchi, to play a little. Zacchi ran behind my legs, leaned in, and said "No Mum, he's bigger than me..." Yesterday Zacchi barked most ferociously. Someone was gathering wild asparagus down below my patch. Zacchi let them know he was in charge. You can be, when Mum is standing behind you!

Zacchi is my second gift dog. The first was Pulce, or flea, whom I renamed Pulcetta, because she was such a little flea. She was doggy-napped, then stolen from the street before I had tracked her down. She had value on the re-sale market. Then Zacchi arrived, a rather reluctantly accepted gift from the same friends who can't contemplate that I could possibly live alone.

Passed on to my soft-hearted friend I suspect because the interesting mix that is Zacchi had no sale value, he was covered in ticks and the most timid wee dog I have ever encountered. Friend had accepted him without looking too well, obviously not wearing glasses that day. Much treatment later, during which this frightened little creature lay perfectly still, almost showing me where the next pink patch was, I was an expert on tick eradication and Zacchi was my slave for life.

The Italian for tick is zecca, plural zeche. I named him Zacchi.



helping mum get better...

everything has a season

To everything, turn, turn, turn,
There is a season, turn, turn, turn,
And a time for every purpose under heaven.


I was going to add all the lyrics to this, from "Turn, turn, turn", but I found in the Seekers' lyrics page via google there were so many other good songs to read too.

The photograph is of number 26. I live in the part you can't see, down below the road. If you are coming to visit, the doorbell is on the big door, the one by my car. But it pays to ring first; Zacchi could be out walking me.

running out of hours...

I had hoped to be further on with this one, but it is a large canvas, 100x70. I am tired and seem to need lots of breaks. But we can do this...

there is a difference

Something that I am struggling to put into words is the difference in approach between the Madron Seligman lecture which talked about "taking warfare off the menu of mankind" (reference pending) and "building a culture of peace" (Congress on International Peace in Côte d'Ivoire 1989).

Peace is not merely an absence of war. Building a culture of peace feels to me more like starting from the foundation and building something new, rather than looking at what is there, and trying to remove it.

"As the twig is bent, so grows the tree". For this cultural change to be permanent I believe we must look to youth, to establish this culture at base level. But it would certainly make growth much stronger if we could also remove the shadow of war, and let the sun shine where seeds of peace are planted.

"Pax in Spinus" suggests that peace comes from war. I want to believe that peace has a life of its own.

why is it

...that our language doesn't have words that are adequate when you want to say to your children how much you love them?

Is that why we bake cakes, buy chocolate, prepare special meals, learn to cook for vegetarians, try to find a way that says what words don't properly convey?

I love my big kids, lots and lots. Always, and in all ways. The world is round, so we are not in different corners. Physically spread wide, but not far apart.

I know that when they wake, some of them will be reading this.

I love you. So much.

and while I painted

work continued in the cantina...
happiness is watching work progress