It's time...

Good Morning...

It's early but there's not a lot of sleeping going on in these parts. I'm finishing up a large commissioned painting and doing a little happy dance over the small box of sample tile i found at heath ceramics (which is just enough to do my fireplace surround) and preparing to teach an encaustic workshop tomorrow. I've gotten lots of packing done while my big guy and my little guy have been away but they return tomorrow evening and I can't wait. I'm living in that moment where they walk through the door and we are together as a family. When things are as they should be once again. I've been putting this off but I believe the time has come to say goodbye for a while and wrap up all that a cross country move entails. To say that I'll miss it here would be an understatement. I may not be writing for the next few weeks but I will be keeping an eye on what you're up to and will be chronicling my journey in pictures and words to share once we're settled back in the mid-west. I wish you all a joyous summer filled with family, friends and of course good food.

Thanks for reading and I'll See you back here August 1st.

I'll leave you with this favorite poem:

"The Flight of the Reader" by Billy Collins

You'd think we would have had enough
of one another
after all the rain streaming down these windows,
the walks out to the garden when it clears,
the same yellow and white flowers,
all the sleepless nights—
the toy car going in circles on the bed table.

But still, you stay perched on my shoulder,
cricket or bluebird,
wild parrot digging your claws into my loud shirt.


Is it because I do not pester you
with the invisible gnats of meaning,
never release the whippets of anxiety from their crates,
or hold up my monstrous mirror,
a thing the size of a playing field?


Whatever makes you stay,
I hate to think of that morning
when I will wake up to find you gone,
heading toward the open sea,
dragging the cables that bound us together,
leaving me with nothing more to say.

But don't get me wrong.
It's not that I cannot live without you,
cannot sit under an ordinary green tree
with no desire to reach for the pen in my pocket,
or lie contented on a couch all day,
one hand over my mouth.

It's not like I have a crush on you
and instead of writing my five-paragraph essay
I am sailing paper airplanes across the room at you—
it's not that I can't wait for the lunch bell
to see your face again.

It's not like that. Not exactly.