spiders and curtains

I wish I had my camera at home this morning. There are six narrow lacy panels hanging on the clothesline, in alternating arrangement, blowing gently in the morning breeze and catching the dappled sunlight under the maple tree. My son is weaving in and out of them at a run, shuttling back and forth -- "It's like a maze!" he says.

I washed the basement curtains. Funny curtains they are, came with the house -- thin, gauzy white, completely inappropriate for an unfinished basement. I think she sewed them up right before she put the place on the market, back when the basement was completely devoid of dirt and bugs. And there have they hung, four years now I should think, attracting house spiders who are in turn attracted to the crawlers and things that creep in around the basement window sills. Dirty, dusty used web threads and insect carcasses everywhere. First I taped a paper towel to the basement broom, tied on a head scarf and gritted my teeth. I swept up as much as I could from the window wells, and then removed the curtains and threw them in the wash machine. By themselves. With lots of water and soap. I only had to transplant one fat house spider. She won't like the corner I left her in. Too damp. I watched her climb up another spider's web, belonging to a much smaller one, which scurried quickly away at the site of her. I'll call her Aunt Fanny.

But if I had a camera, I'd post a picture of those curtains, on the line.

world without end

I think that everything real, everything worth having in the sense that an object might be worth clinging to, is old. Worn, carried and possibly discarded, sometimes unwanted.

I look at people, all the time, every day, young and old and in-between. I look at their creases, at the marks they wear and their imperfections. I look at my own body -- still a good shape, but criss-crossed by scars and veins that have aged, threaded with grey hairs, unexpected in places and overgrown, overlooked maybe...but mine. Some people call me pretty, and so it might be hard to believe I could see myself as "overlooked"... but I know who I am naked, and I mostly look my age. It's important to me to be strong and flexible, too. And to last.

I pick up what I find on the street. What is old and forgotten. There is STILL beauty to be found there -- it never dies, not as long as there is light and vision.

still in progress...but coming along...

As usual, I have no idea where these photos will wind up in the post....
these are details from the current project. Right now it may be called "I smell lilacs," or "Birds at night," or both... layering.

I get caught up sometimes in worrying about what I can't see yet. How will the bottom of this composition resolve itself? How will I finish the back and borders? Will I add trees? Where will it end? This one has been in the pipeline A WHILE... I have given myself the deadline of July 27th, the SAQA meeting, to have it completed. Because I like to spin these projects out past their useful span... I love them, then leave them, then renew my obsession months later. When I finally allowed myself a break from worrying about missing pieces, and started layering in some of the objects I've hoarded away (like a bower bird, but not as monochrome in my tastes)... well then. Things begin to bloom.

I have a friend who walks each night before bedtime. Sometimes he emails me his thoughts while walking, BlackBerry-style; and one night, while lamenting the increasingly-likely demise of a suffering acquaintance, he paused to type "I smell lilacs." It was early spring. And I thought, of night, and death, and flowers blooming in the dark; this is layered across the earlier mental image of birds on their branches at night, birds quiet, sleeping birds, silhouetted in their secret nests. The colors visible in bright moonlight, and the things you can sense, but not see...