Two Short Stories that May or May Not have Anything to do with Each Other

(also, I sometimes sporadically and spontaneously capitalize words)





Today I suckered BC into grocery shopping.  After a decade of marriage, we have fallen into certain household roles and the general category of "food" has my name written all over it.  I do not mind this a bit, but about once a quarter, I coax him into the car, carrying my canvas bags and back up water bottle with a promise of a meal out.
Today it was sushi, and plenty of it.  I must have spicy tuna with too much ginger and he must have hamachi nigiri with lots of wasabi and if a tempura yam roll shows, well so be it!
I think the bargain is a good one.
One of the great loves BC and I share is dinning out.  Some might even call us "whores for eating out" and I would not be able to correct them.  When we first moved out of Seattle and back down to California, to this sparsly populated county on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, with the "biggest city" weighing in at under 30,000 people, we thought our days of eating out would be numbered.
I can now tell you this is not the case.
The last time we went out to breakfast our server, Lilly, finished my order for me (fruit instead of hashbrowns, right?).  Last month, at Pak India, the adorable man who does everything asked if we were models because we were so tall.  He told us he had been wanting to ask for months.  At Big Blue, they ask after Sancho and show us new tattoos.
And I must confess: we love it.
* * *
These tights?  Or, as you may have been thinking, these "incredible, awesome tights?"  They finally showed up and I'm pretty certain I'll be wearing them non-stop this winter.  I ordered them months ago, way back, I do believe, before we moved and before I had adjusted the shipping address on my paypal.  At the time I was not worried, as we had our paperwork in for the postal forward but then some strange glitch in the system took over, and we've been trying to track our mail down for no less than three month.  We heard stories of our mail being held in a mysterious box that made its way through the various post offices in the county, somehow always eluding us.  I could have cared less about our water bill, but these tights!  My hope was starting to wane.  But then, like a blessing when you need it most, a flurry of mail and one rumpled package finally arrived and now my legs are complete.
Thank God.

Life is good, no?

After the Quiet

This afternoon I took myself, Sancho, Pierré the Canon and a two percent Latté into the forest.  Winter made a great show of arriving and we sloshed through deep mud and wadded in ferns rib-high.  I've had a quiet week, the kind where so much time was spent digesting the beautiful aftermath of the yoga weekend, that I had little to say externally.
*
I found something so glorious within that I could not be bothered with banal duties.  I sang aloud and let the laundry sit.
*
I fell down the well.  Sancho, beautiful beautiful soul came and laid his jowlies on my knees and gave me everything in his soulful eyes.  Thai velcroed himself to my lap and purred with all his might.  These canine hearts, these feline souls are some of my dearest confidants and best friends.
*
I gained courage in a painting I'd set off in a corner of the studio, one that I've not been ready to face until now.  I started it several months back with a ghost of imagery playing in my head; when I began to paint in earnest, I found the meaning, what I would need to confront within in order to paint in utter honesty.  And I was not ready.  Not until this week.
*
I found a window flung wide open, after months and months of feeling my way in the dark, looking for any small fissue to gain a way forward but finding only solid rock.
*
I started three new paintings (PINK! Oh my god, it's so pink, an internal cavern of anatomy, deep and pulsing.  But somehow, so exactly right).
*
I've listened to so much wordless music.
*
I feel like last week was one of those existential birthings, one that I've been carrying for a long long time.  It was perfect, it was rocky.  Thank god I have a good man and some sturdy running shoes.  And that I know the secret to a great 6-layer bean dip (it's Fayeh yogurt in place of sour cream.  Come on.  So delish) and this salad, because it was all I could carve time to eat.

But tonight, before I take on my womanly duties (there are approximately one hundred and twenty pounds of beast waiting to be fed - daylight savings is throwing them off and the bitch session is incredible), I want to share this with you.


"Everything is gestation and then birthing.  To let each impression and each embryo of feeling come to completion entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own understanding, and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born; this alone is what it means to live as an artist.
In this, there is no measuring with time, a year doesn't matter, and ten years are nothing.  Being an artist means not numbering and counting but ripening like a tree which doesn't force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward, summer may not come.
It does come."
- Rainer Maria Rilke

Peace be with you tonight.
~ Umber ~

Last weekend I took myself down to the golden foothills of California's North Bay for a silent yoga retreat with a dear kindred spirit.  I've been unpacking the events of the weekend, slowly, carefully, trying to allow them space to breath and become.  Trying to let them be just a sacred experience that I may never fully explain away.  I'm not ready to bare my heart on this one yet, but the events of the day seared themselves so deeply upon my heart that I can think of nothing else to speak of.  I filled pages and pages with writings and sketches.  I acquired verbiage for images I've only known as guttural response.  I know the depth is still descending, like a pebble in a bottomless well, but I desire to share this with you.

* * *

We drove in the dark under shooting stars, headlights cutting a trail through coyote brush and chaparral scrub, winding upward, onward, deeper, older, wiser.  The hills are soft with age and when you step lightly upon them, you feel a sense of stillness, of smallness as though the grandeur of what they once were held only a fraction of the power they now possess. The fauna was a live walk through the animals I chose for next year's calendar: deer in droves, jack rabbits, quail, owls, sparrows, goldfinch, moths, and one lone fox.  I felt arrived, I felt communal, I felt the holy nature of that place, baptized by the scent of eucalyptus, the trinity of hooves, feathers and fur.  I was alone with my thoughts, my hurts, my small victories.  We marched over hill and knoll, cold sunlight on the small of my back, dropping down into ancient creek beds that whispered.  I laid down, stretched out, on sturdy boughs that cradled my heart and soul.  

I said "I'm hurt."  I heard "I know."  

I said "I'm afraid."  I heard "I know that too."
No false promises, no rush for salvation, just a deep sorrow, a deeper understanding, smoothing of hair and an encompassing love.

And I wept because those tears were the only true offering I had to give.  There was no pride, there was no agenda.  They were pure.  Holy.  My heart unfurled a little more; great beating petals unfolding their true center.  Love became a brilliant beam pouring forth, pouring in, and I learned something, was reminded something about the power of self-love.

I tell you this: a stitch was put in an age old wound.  A balm was held to my forehead.  I felt safer with myself, safer with my heart, safer with my fears, my hopes, my wild imagination in that place than I have in a long, long time.  Perhaps since I was child who did not know better.  And that was so, so long ago.  

* * *

Sometime Thursday Morning Post Coffee

Or mid-coffee as the case may be.  

[side note:  I firmly believe that if the Last Supper had instead been the Last Brunch, Jesus would have turned that water into the most delicious coffee man had ever tasted, and cream and honey would have poured forth.]

But I digress... and I know you are all chomping at the bit to see what magic numbers were pulled out of the hat!

So with the help of Mr. Random Generator Dot Org. we have names and three calendars ready to be shipped out to their prospective homes!

Our winners:

Cinder Says (you foxy lady...)

Emmy D (miss optimist herself)

Emily (who has a thing for quails and chickadees - girl, I am right there with you on this one!!)

Ladies-fine, please send your addresses to me at kclarkstudios@gmail.com and I'll ship shape them out!

And to ALL of you commenters-fine, thank you so much for taking a moment to enter this little give-a-way of mine.  Thank you as EVER for making my day, for making me smile, for making this life I believe so whole-heartedly real.

You are the bee's knees times ten thousand.

Tres Cosas

~ uno ~
Creatures I Have Know:  THE Calendar is here.
WHOOT!
It's so very satisfying what with its substantial cardstock, glossy inks and cheery, cheery colors.  I'm in perma grin over here!

~ dos ~
If you've not entered the 2012 Calendar give-a-way, you have just a few more hours to do so!  Chop chop!  I can't wait to pull those three winning names tomorrow!

~ tres ~
I have so many thoughts tied up in my head, compacted through my spine, plus the residual aches from 23 hours of driving that I am heading in for a massage shortly.  I left a sliver of my heart in Seattle this last weekend, and the empty space in my chest aches.  But it was good.  So good.  I'll tell you about it soon, ok?

Happy Hump Day!
I hope these last golden days of October are treating you well!
~ Umber ~