Jaci Dawn

When I get to thinking too much, I plummet into the blues. Rainy days and blues.

I have been thinking too much.

I started out thinking about how I was going to pull together this website and put my artwork up, then I got out my colored pencils and started drawing. And drawing brings out the poet. And the poet looked around at her life which is not anywhere near what she had imagined it would be like at this stage in life.

She sighed. Then she looked back at the drawing she was working on and realized it was a self-portrait. A romanticized self portrait because when you draw, you can remove the moles and wrinkles, but a self-portrait nonetheless. And the self-portrait wanted to be colored in with earth colors: moss greens, autumn leaves, old-man’s-beard lichen, and sagebrush green. The self-portrait wanted to be free of the city, the traffic, the eight-to-five, and the responsibilities.

The self portrait longed to be where there are no boundaries and all the world is a yard and the paths are narrow on the side of the mountain.

The self-portrait didn’t want to know why things cannot be that way, not now, not in this season. She only longed to be free.

So I had to close the sketch book for a few days to silence the siren’s call.

I didn’t really close the sketch book, but it is tempting. It is so hard to not be the person I thought I would be by now, and to know that a lot of it was just life creeping up on me.

If you have watched the movie “Up!” you might know what I am talking about: there was this couple who planned to do all this traveling together, but life just took over. They kept breaking the penny jar to pay for things over the years until she died and he was left alone, haunted by all of her dreams, a bitter old man.

Of course, “Up!” has a happy ending: he decided to pursue her dream of flying around the world after all, and a silly adventure is started. One with talking dogs.

I do not want any talking dogs in my adventure, thank you very much. (SQUIRREL!!)

OK, I had to toss that in to lighten my mood. I know that I will get everything accomplished that I wanted to accomplish, it’s just going to be on a different time-table than I had it on when I was 19 and planning out my life.

I need to remind my self-portrait that even thought I can sketch out the moles and wrinkles, she is still 53 years old and there is still time to do everything. Breathe in, breathe out.

Meanwhile, it is still raining.

Got all my ducks in a row.

Okay, so that was a groaner.

I am thinking about re-prioritizing for awhile, just to get my ducks in a row. New Year’s Resolution: set up a web page for my art. I’ve been photo-shopping and thinking, thinking and dreaming, and now I have my colored pencils out. I haven’t had my colored pencils out in an age.

The problem with digging out my colored pencils is I want to do more artwork. Now I am all inspired and I have no idea where (or when) I am going to fit all this creativity in between work, little boys, housework, little boys, big dog and little boys. I have to hide the art items from one little boy in particular: give the boy a crayon and he will have you drawing for the rest of the evening. Monsters, cars, stars, apples, puppies, monsters.

Have I mentioned that the little boy is obsessive? Single-minded. Determined.

Back to the subject: ducks. In a row.

I apologize for being a bit vague. I don’t want to get too excited but I have a visual concept of what I want to do. And that is exciting. I have never had a clear focus for what I want to do, and now – in the midst of chaos – it is beginning to form.

It’s hard to be patient.

I still feel like I’m paddling in circles, but there’s a vision now. I think it is coming together.

A couple weeks or so ago, I read “Where the Wild Things Are” to Zephan.

I had no idea what a mistake that would be. It launched something none of us have been able to curb: Zephan’s love of the Wild Things. Monsters. Rawr.

Then I rented “Monsters, Inc.” on Netflicks.

And an addiction was born.

Zephan has to watch “Monsters, Inc.” at least once a day. And he begs Baba to read “monsters” to him (“Where the Wild Things Are”). Tonight he cuddle with me and told me stories (mostly incoherent toddler-babble). But even I could make out “Rawr” and “Monsters” and “Story” and “TV”. He wanted me to read stories to him, specifically “The Tickle Monster” by Josie Bissett and “Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak. Especially the latter.

Maybe Zephan identifies with Max, the hero?

I don’t know. I just love how his imagination has taken hold of him and he curls his little fingers up and says, “Rawr!”

I did not read any stories to him tonight. We just cuddled and talked about the stories he thought I should read him. I knew better than to get the books out: Zephan is a bit obsessive. He’d want the same story over-and-over-and-over again and then he would cry if I couldn’t provide that for him.

But talking was good.

As he climbed the stairs to head to bed (or at least, quiet time) with his mom and little brother at 8:00, he peered down through the stair rails and said, very clearly, “Nite-nite Monsers!”

To which we replied, “Nite-nite Little Monser!”

I really need an entire day spent doing nothing but artsy stuff. Really need one.

I messed around on the computer today, but it isn’t as gratifying as dragging out the watercolours or the oils or the colored pencils and drawing. I do have just such a project in the wings: my mind is still wrapping around it and there is some work I need to do on the computer first. I have it uploaded to my computer and part of the first leg done, but…

I had to stop and watch “The Never-ending Story” with a little boy.

He was supposed to be napping while his mom and dad ran to the store. He was very quiet and they assumed he was asleep, so they left me in charge of him.

He was not asleep but he was very tired and a tad bit sick. So he and I curled up in the easy chair and we watched the entire movie together. It’s a cute movie with a great story but the special effects are really dated. The Luck Dragon needs to be recreated digitally. Gmork (the werewolf) is pretty laughable. But, still – for a two year old boy and his Baba, it is a good enough movie.

And it wasn’t “Monsters, Inc.” again. Zephan can watch that three times a day.

So after all the chores were done, dinner cooked & dishes washed, I did not get as far creatively as planned.

But I did get the photo for the day taken.

Still life in the loft, backlit by the sun.

Old worn wood, old varnish, and an old keyhole waiting for a skeleton key.

Drawer handles with patina.

Photos of the old dresser I brought into our marriage. It was my intention some 30 years ago when I acquired the dresser that I would fix it up. Strip the old stain and varnish off, polish up the hardware, mend the runners.

Thirty years later, it is in much the same state of disrepair it was in when I picked it up. It is, however, a solid dresser and despite it’s condition is still in use as a dresser. It’s not flimsy.

Rather haunting.

I like that photo.

We had such a balmy last week of January! There were flocks of Brewers blackbirds and American robins flitting from tree to tree along the business parkway where I work. I don’t mean little flocks of blackbirds, either: hundreds of blackbirds. Not European starlings (which are nasty, non-native birds that make a croaking carl), these were native Brewers’ blackbirds (all shiny black) that chirped and cheeped cheerily as they flitted into the branches of the trees.

The robins were all over the lawns, showing off their bright red breasts and hunting for bugs. Unfortunately, they were NOT holding still for the camera.

I wanted to get a photo os several birds at once, but they kept hopping and flitting off in ten directions. I wanted to get a photo of this guy’s little face with the bright eye and yellow beak, but he kept turning away as he looked for worms.

None of the birds were very cooperative. The blackbirds were too high; the robins were camera-shy.

Now, if I had known he was going to do that, maybe I could have panned the camera and followed him!

Oh well. I eventually gave up trying to get photos and just watched them as they hunted worms and slugs and caterpillars (there were caterpillars out, too!).

To me, robins are always the first portent of spring. I hope they are right and it will be an early, mild spring.

This entire week has been balmy and (mostly) dry in the Pacific Northwest. I’ve been perusing books on flowers and perennials and sketching plans for my garden. Today was supposed to be the last of the balmy days as the rain is returning tomorrow.

Since I was released from jury duty at 11:00AM and I had half a day off coming to me, I decided to take the rest of the day and do something fun. It was hard to decide what to do as I strolled back to my car. (I parked on top of the hill near the Catholic church and walked to the elevator rather than trying to find parking in downtown Oregon City, so I had a pleasant jaunt. I even considered walking the promenade overlooking the Willamette River and falls, but since I did not have my camera with me I decided against that. That’s a walk for a day with a camera.)

I had t o come home to get my camera.And since I was home and the weather was balmy and I had this very long list of garden work that was supposed to have been done in October, guess what I decided to do?

I decided to deadhead all those plants that should have been cleaned up last fall: the peonies, the daylilies, the asters, the hollyhocks, the lavenders and the sage.

You might not notice much, but my peonies breathed a huge sigh of relief.

My beautiful mallow fell over sometime in November and was laying on top of the Spanish lavender. I had a spirea that died last winter that I never tried to dig out, too. And the sunflowers needed to come down.

Sadly, the mallow was dead, broken at the root. Happily, the spirea just pulled out of the muddy ground as did the sunflowers. I cleaned up everything else and I know the lavender breathed a sigh of relief.

By the time I reached this mess, I wasn’t certain I could fit the rest of the yard debris into the recycle bin. There’s another two asters, several peonies and some sunflowers yet.

WOW. the difference (to me) is stunning. And it didn’t take me very long, either. My peonies are especially thrilled.

The peonies are beginning to get the itch to grow.

Tender new stalks are beginning to push up from the ground.

I left all the leaves and mulch in case we have a freeze.

Then there are the faerie woods. Oh my. I had to disturb some of them and will probably have to rip out a lot of them come spring, but they are so enchanting. Can you imagine living under the canopy of those mini ferns??

I found a bit of petrified wood that I tossed out into my garden. I have so much of this stuff – pieces of petrified wood, agates, strange rocks… I am certain the wee faeries appreciate the little added beauty and the moss will soon claim the rocks.

Oh yes. there’s this. The mole vs. Murphy war. They had a truce when it was cold: the mold did a little damage to the yard and Murphy ignored it. But since the weather warmed up, Murphy decided to dig for the mole. He dug this trench one afternoon.

The mole filled it back in the following evening.

Don and I figure between the dog and the mole, we will finally be getting a real lawn put in. The rototilling is already done…

I have this fountain in my cubicle. It was a gift from my mother-in-law many years ago (after I commented on how much I liked the fountains in her garden). I am surprised mt little fountain has lasted so long. The first couple of years that I had it, my office was on the east side of town where they have some very “soft” water. I had to clean it once a month or gunk grew in the bottom and clogged up the pump. Now I work in a part of the metro area where they have very hard water and I find I have to clean the calcium deposit off about once a year. But no more gunk.

Over the years, I have added little embellishments. Who wants a boring old generic fountain? Not me.

The pink frog is the oldest addition. I found him on the floor of the office after someone had clients with children visit. Some poor child lost his rubber frog, but the frog is happy: he has a fountain to float around in and a pond created out of half of a clam shell.

The clam shell was a gift from a friend many years ago, given to me as a reminder of how pearls are created. It takes years, a lot of stress and pressure to create a pearl.

The bear with the salmon in his jaws is all that remains of a key chain my oldest gave me after her first trip to Alaska. I think the bear is a little like the frog: happy to be somewhere there is running water. No doubt he dreams of salmon runs. (The salmon probably dreams of salmon runs, too, and dying in the jaws of a hungry rubber bear.)

The green coin is a St. Patrick’s Day souvenir left over from last March 17.  Someone at work handed them out to everyone.

The Depoe Bay snow globe was a gift my immediate boss (Lola) brought back with her after a short vacation to the coast. She brought one for me and one for my co-worker, Mary. Of course it has a lighthouse in it. There are ten lighthouses along the Oregon Coast and not one of them looks like the lighthouse in the snow globe, but who cares? And there’s no lighthouse at Depoe Bay, either.

The little ceramic cat was a birthday gift from my coworker and friend, Audrey. It’s a good luck cat. I don’t think she particularly cares for water (most cats don’t), but she stays dry up there on top of the fountain.

This has the best story of all my trinkets. I paid $1.50 for this painted rock. We were at a local rock and bark-mulch place, purchasing several yards of composted steer manure for the garden. They had a whole line up of these funny little painted rocks for $1.50 to $3.00.

I thought maybe someone’s child painted them and conned mom or dad into selling them at the office, but that wasn’t the story.

The artist, Vallie, is in her late nineties and is a survivor of the Holocaust. She paints these clever little rocks as a hobby (selling some is probably just icing on the cake). Each rock is signed and dated.

The woman behind the counter at the rock place couldn’t tell me anything else about the artist except she also sells her rocks at some senior center.

I wouldn’t mind having a lot of those special little rocks. The faces were all like the one I bought: cheerful little people. I think it is cool that cheerful people live in the heart of someone who went through something as terrible as the Holocaust. It gives me hope.

This is my crazy husband. This is a self-portrait by my crazy husband. he took it on one of those week-long vacations he’s taken without me.

Understand this: he would prefer that I went with him, but ever since I changed jobs (in the same company), I have not been able to schedule the same weeks off as he has. For one thing, I don’t get as many weeks of vacation and for another, we’re so short-handed that I can only take a week at a time.

We hate living like this, but it’s a reality we have to accept for now. A season in life. A season that will eventually come to a close.

Oh? Wait, what is that? You want to know what he has in his arms? Oh. That is the Rock. The Rock he dragged home. The Rock that weighs about 100 pounds and languishes in our yard in the spot where he set it down because it is too darn heavy to pick up and move. The Rock that he dragged home because we both love rocks and we love them for no particular reason other than their strange, rugged beauty.

That’s what I love about Donald. He never gets after me for picking up rocks or bugs or stopping to stare at the dessicated little body of some bird. He doesn’t think it is odd that I love coyotes and hate the idea of shooting them for sport (although he did teach me there is a balance in these things).

One vacation we took together, we spent the entire time following insects around. We got into a camp site where there were these crazy little sweat bees. They landed on our legs and arms and nibbled at the sweat. We held contests to see which one of us could hold still the longest and coax the largest number of bees to settle on their legs. Sweat bees do not have stingers, so it wasn’t that weird of a contest (I hear you all saying, “EEEK!!!”).

Another time, we followed some parasitic wasps around and watched them dig numerous holes in the desert sand where they later deposited stunned spiders or caterpillars (I forget which).

Once, we set up lawn chairs and watched a pair of carrion beetles bury an entire dead mouse. It took less time than we expected. Insects are amazing.

And then there’s the rocks like the one Don has in his arms. That’s his rock. I have a couple in the yard that are my rocks. The most recent rock is on the kitchen window sill: Don brought it home to me a couple weeks ago.

I just love that man. he knows exactly what kind of rock to get me, and he doesn’t have to ask Jared.