Resolve and Resolving: Resolutions 2012

quotesandnotes

Last year I made ten resolutions and only managed to honor one, so this year, I'm going to be honest and realistic with myself and resolve to do only what I know I'm interested in resolving.

Drink more. When you think about it, life is rosier after a glass of wine. My goal is to down all those bottles I've been keeping for a special occasion. Ladies and gentlemen: I am that special occasion!

Dance, Dance, Dance. It's been way too long since I've been out on a dance floor, bar or stage. My goal is to dance every day. Yes, every single day. And I'm not talking lame Wii or zumba moves. I'm talking African Healing Dance, Belly Dancing, and whatever gets me up and shaking a leg (or grove thing), busting a move, etc.

1000 words. The book won't write itself. It's up to me to sit in the chair, or on the couch, or in the car, and write. My goal is to write 1000 words longhand every day. No matter what.

Read Dickens. 2012 just may end up being the best of times, or the worst of times, but I'll have Dickens there to show me how we humans navigate ourselves in hale and fallow times. My goal is to read Charles Dickens' oeuvre, starting with "Great Expectations".

Get Paleolithic. As in eating fresh fruit, lean meats, vegetables, and sea food. My goal is to cut back refined sugars, grains, vegetable oils, and salt. I have no interest in making the Paleo Diet my new religion. I just want to get healthier.

Explore Chocolate. Do I really need to explain myself on this one? My goal is to go dark, very, very dark.

Worry Less. There's a lot to worry about right now, but I think that's the history of the world. There always was a lot to worry about. My goal is to worry less and thereby stop grinding my teeth and ending up with cracked molars and TMJ. I will let the worry present itself, I'll shake it's hand, say it's name, smile, make it feel like it's the only worry in the room, then nod and move on. I will make it a point to focus on seeing what is rather than horriblizing even the smallest worry into the Apocalypse.

Get Out of Dodge. It may be true that most men and women travel the entire world searching for treasure, only to discover it in their own backyards, but I want to search the entire world. I've spent far too much time in my own backyard to appreciate it. I need to leave and come back. Then I'll look for backyard booty. My goal is to make small forays out into the broader world. So far, I have trips to New York City, and Paris on the docket. I can hear the voice of Hagia Sophia all the way from Istanbul, and the mosaics of San Vitale in Ravenna beckon.

Cut My Losses. This one is going to be hard. My goal is to untie any Gordian knot that is keeping me tethered to a past that no longer exists. I am going to clean house and send that which no longer adds to my life, either packing or to the goodwill. No hard feelings.

Give Thanks. I'm not getting all Thanksgiving here. What I'm talking about is, saying thank you to people, I may or may not know, that have impacted my life, people whom I admire, people whose work I admire. My goal is to write a thank you note a week, address it, put a stamp on it, and put it in the mail. Even if you think you know me well, you have no idea how difficult the process of getting something in the mail is for me. At the close of 2012, I will have written and mailed 52 thank you notes, (and in the process shed one neurosis).

Keep Track: All we have is each other. In this life it is comforting to know we have friends who love us despite our many failings. Accept us for ourselves. Love us despite our quirks and tempers. Take our calls at unreasonable hours. Know our secrets and still like us. Defend us against our enemies with a fury worthy of myth. Break our fall. Catch us when we trip over ourselves. My goal is to contact every friend I've let slip under the horizon.

One Sentence: December 31, 2011

Dim lights, the scent of citrus, warmed blankets, and hands on skin kneading knotted muscles smooth.

Poem Therapy at 11:37 A.M. December 30, 211: Kissing Stieglitz Good-Bye - Gerald Stern

Kissing Stieglitz Good-Bye
Gerald Stern

Every city in America is approached
through a work of art, usually a bridge
but sometimes a road that curves underneath
or drops down from the sky. Pittsburgh has a tunnel—

you don't know it—that takes you through the rivers
and under the burning hills. I went there to cry
in the woods or carry my heavy bicycle
through fire and flood. Some have little parks—

San Francisco has a park. Albuquerque
is beautiful from a distance; it is purple
at five in the evening. New York is Egyptian,
especially from the little rise on the hill

at 14-C; it has twelve entrances
like the body of Jesus, and Easton, where I lived,
has two small floating bridges in front of it
that brought me in and out. I said good-bye

to them both when I was 57. I'm reading
Joseph Wood Krutch again—the second time.
I love how he lived in the desert. I'm looking at the skull
of Georgia O'Keeffe. I'm kissing Stieglitz good-bye.

He was a city, Stieglitz was truly a city
in every sense of the word; he wore a library
across his chest; he had a church on his knees.
I'm kissing him good-bye; he was, for me,

the last true city; after him there were
only overpasses and shopping centers,
little enclaves here and there, a skyscraper
with nothing near it, maybe a meaningless turf

where whores couldn't even walk, where nobody sits,
where nobody either lies or runs; either that
or some pure desert: a lizard under a boojum,
a flower sucking the water out of a rock.

What is the life of sadness worth, the bookstores
lost, the drugstores buried, a man with a stick
turning the bricks up, numbering the shards,
dream twenty-one, dream twenty-two. I left

with a glass of tears, a little artistic vial.
I put it in my leather pockets next
to my flask of Scotch, my golden knife and my keys,
my joyful poems and my T-shirts. Stieglitz is there

beside his famous number; there is smoke
and fire above his head; some bowlegged painter
is whispering in his ear; some lady-in-waiting
is taking down his words. I'm kissing Stieglitz

goodbye, my arms are wrapped around him, his photos
are making me cry; we're walking down Fifth Avenue;
we're looking for a pencil; there is a girl
standing against the wall—I'm shaking now

when I think of her; there are two buildings, one
is in blackness, there is a dying poplar;
there is a light on the meadow; there is a man
on a sagging porch. I would have believed in everything.

I am still trying to believe in everything.

When I first learned of Georgia O'Keeffe and Stieglitz, saw the sensual photographs he had taken of her hands, (probably those first years when I was hidden away in the stacks of the university's library), I couldn't believe she left him for the desert. She left Alfred Steiglitz! She left this man who loved her, when he was ill, when he was dying. And, unbelievably, he didn't hate her for it. And, from all I can gather, from thier letters, she never felt guilt for leaving.

She loved him, but she loved her work more.

When I was young, I thought O'Keeffe ungrateful, selfish. Now that I am older I understand, what an act of courage it must of been for her, to leave New York City and Steiglitz, and all both offered, and to choose like a man. But, being a woman, she had to choose between love and her life's work. She chose the latter, and people like me, (in my younger incarnation), judged her for it.

She knew very early in her life, what I am just coming to know: Art is a jealous lover and despite what you try to make yourself believe, that you can have both, you must choose. You can have only one lover. And when you make the choice, that you, that what you want, that your vision, is what really matters, you will be judged. Perhaps even damned.

Does it really matter when your desert beckons?

This coming year, I must choose.

Artist of the Day: Herbariums I - Romina Bacci

Herbariums I Romina Bacci milesoflight.etsy.com & www.rominabacci.com

Around ten this morning, a murder of crows, over one-thousand, flew over the field behind my house in a strange, undulating black line, east toward the Rocky Mountains. What's even stranger is that I didn't see this as a portent of the new year. I only saw what is, crows flying like a river over the property behind me, most likely in search of ground planted with winter wheat, its soil clear of snow, exposed and vulnerable.

Okay, so maybe I saw a little more than what is, as my dramatic last sentence implies.

To change subjects, and to clarify why I chose this photograph of leaves, yet persist on talking about corvids: have you ever considered how closely leaves resemble feathers?

Take a closer look at Bacci's gorgeous photograph, and identify which looks like a finch, dove, swallow, hummingbird feather.

Or, do you just see what is?

Artist Bio:
Photographer and Graphic Designer. Originally from Rosario, Argentina, living in Plano, Texas US.

WEB: www.rominabacci.com
BLOG: http://milesoflightprints.blogspot.com/
FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/pages/MilesofLight/127040074011299

"There’s obviously a strong influence from my mother in all my nature related work. I’ve definitely absorbed her passion for nature, aborigines and their rudimentary work; anything coming from the earth. She used to engrave leather, make lamps with sea shells, seed necklaces, collect dried flowers. I believe my feather obsession is not so arbitrary."

This Moment: 8:12 A.M. December 31, 2011

A chorus of crows sing an ominous hymn this December morning. The sky is separated into thirds: ash-colored haze, pale blue, stark white cumulus. The snowstorms have yet to arrive. Like the sky, what I remember of my dream is divided into thirds: one part modern architecture, ancient Hittite, and torn strips of paper. The new year beckons. The small dog barks furiously at a jogger running past our house. The woman stops to readjust her navy and burgundy scarf. My dog is all animated growl and punctuated warning. The old dog refuses to join the game, her head rests on her crossed fore paws. The Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world at the close of this new year. Cars speed down the road to their destinations, tulips and winter wheat harbor under the cold earth, waiting for the sun to return, a plane cuts it's way through the air overhead, birds venture from their shelters to forage. The end of my world as I know it is coming. I hope for a braver new world.

Artist of the Day: Great Writers Series - Emily Louise Howard

Guest Writers Series Emily Louise Howard thediggingestgirl.etsy.com

It's time to write the book already!

Artist Bio:
Welcome to The Diggingest Girl, fine art and crafts by Emily Louise Howard!

A little about me: I have been a lover of art since childhood - whether I was carving shrunken heads out of apples with my mom or drawing on the underside of her kitchen table. Since then I've matured just a little and I now hold a Masters Degree in Fine Arts from the University of Cincinnati (I received my BFA from the University of Kentucky). Many people in academia like to draw a hard line between fine art and craft, but I don't discriminate - I do it all!

One Sentence: December 26, 2011

How is it possible it has taken me almost half a century to understand that what I choose to focus on, see, attach meaning to, is the reality I have made?