embroidery

On my recent trip to my folks' house, I took this photo of the flower arrangement in the guest bathroom. I made it when I was in about the second grade, probably in Pioneer Girls, which is like Girl Scouts, but with God. I learned to embroider and to make a makeshift stove out of a coffee can.

The flowers have probably shifted in all the moving my parents have done. Still, I look at the white and the purple and try to get back into my 8-year-old mind, thoughtfully choosing where each should go. A perfectionist even then, I inflicted order wherever I could. I liked most to arrange and rearrange the knickknacks on my dresser--shells from the vacations, rocks carefully chosen for texture or striation.

Messiness has since taken over the order, over my life. I've learned to relinquish many of my perfectionist tendencies. I often read to my two-year-old rather than do the dishes. Of course, I've also contained most of my perfectionism to writing; perhaps I'm just seeking order in (children's) literature since I know it will never happen in my kitchen.

I'm ambivalent now about my time at Pioneer Girls. I'm bemused that they thought embroidering was a useful skill to teach a girl in the early 80s. On the other hand, I have mostly good memories from the time I spent with the other girls and teachers, and I'm bashful that I don't know more traditionally womanly arts. It took a real woman to teach me crochet in my late twenties. (Thanks, Dewi!) But more on that another time.

uneven surfaces

I finally got a shot of my favorite caution sign on my recent flight from Texas. I always say "wheee" when I pass this sign. Such a graceful fall/dance/leap. If only I could be that composed as I tumble.

I wrote about falling (among other things) in my essay recently published at The Collagist. A clumsy person, I'm often recovering from stumbles and untimely meetings with furniture. I feel just as clumsy in my writing--that I blunder into my next essay or paragraph--but these falls feel much more serendipitous than my physical ones. My writing feels more like this sign--uneven surfaces that I trip over sublimely.

day dark

After moving to Ohio from Albuquerque in 2003, I had to relearn how to live under clouds. I bought a light box and generally scowled at the overcast days, the low ceiling--"day dark" as I've called it in an essay.

I think I've finally learned to appreciate the beauty of the gray. But ask me again in February.