Checking In Following Artfest

Home again from the most wonderful time at the last ever Artfest. For 2 nights preceeding the big event I hung with friends at a cabin overlooking Discovery Bay, next to Fort Worden State Park. The wind and rain battered the little cabin on the bluff so hard that it shook but we stayed cozy and mostly warm and kept each other company. It was the happiest and most melancholy time for me. I don't know how the others were feeling about it. No one really wanted to touch on the subject. But there it was. Change being the one thing you can count on.

I took very few photographs. The memories will be enough. Of helping Stephanie teach and experiencing her forgiveness when I blundered. Of watching the people there love and share and cherish each other. It really has been like church for me; seeing this community grow and extend an attitude of inclusion to others. It's good to feel safe with others, to feel loved and to love in return.

Now I'm home again and getting my even keel back. Going through the last week of the online class with the journalers who are terrific company and who present me with new surprises and fun every time we meet on Facebook. 

It's good to have friends who are near as well as friends who live far away. Especially if you live miles from the nearest coffee shop and long for a bustling city from time to time.

I have the Dalai Lama, Anais Nin, and this charming child though to keep me company. They are as real as can be.

Frida drops in from time to time. She urges me to wear more flowers in my hair. I like how she's not afraid to wear two at once!

                      

Recently I've been obsessed with nurse's uniforms and those white uniforms the sailors wore in the 1940's. It occurs to me that men shoot holes in each other and nurses have to sew them back up. Or at least they did in that war.

I'm in a balmy mood here. John's planting every sort of tomato, pepper and potato crop. He bought 3 new trees yesterday (weeping mulberry, pear and hachiya persimmon) and caught a squirrel in a have-a-heart trap which he delivered to a park a few miles away. This is how it goes in our neck of the woods. As soon as the rain lets up I hope my mojo will turn up again. I keep looking for it. Until then, mildew is the watchword. 

Take care. xo