Longer Days

It’s 5:00 pm, and there’s still pink light making the rising clouds of steam blush in the distance beyond our windows, and turning the glass and steel surfaces into mirrors. We’ve noticed, just this week, that the days really do seem to be getting longer — and what a welcome thing that is. Winter will last two more months up here, but there will be more bright days like this one from now on.

I will gratefully take all the brightness I can find. We are all struggling for words, for focus, for stability. I hope that you can see that our biggest reason for hope is each other. I am so heartened by the steadfastness and courage of the ordinary people of Minnesota, and all those who are speaking out with their words, their feet, their presence. And I hope you can also see that the nefarious forces are afraid of this power. I do think that those closest to the struggle can feel the support of the millions of us who cannot be there in person. So please do hold them in the light of your consciousness, or whatever way you describe this act of intention that we humans do. I wish we had more of a solidarity movement here in Canada, with a symbol like putting a candle in our window after dark, but maybe doing it anyway is a gesture that can help us.

And please do your own creative work, as much as you can. If we are aware of the plight of others, and do what we can to help, it’s an act of resistance to also continue to make things, to allow the creative life force to flow through us. I’ve had a busy week full of dental and eye appointments, a dead car battery, and days that seemed to dissolve without much to show for them. But I’ve drawn a little bit, and reworked the recent oil painting so that I’m more satisfied with it.

I’ve gotten up and exercised for a half hour on the treadmill every morning, and tried to sit down at the piano for a little while most evenings, communicating with Schubert. My current sweater project is growing on the needles. I also read Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, which somehow I’d never read before — it’s a longer essay than I realized, and brilliant. Every person of letters should read it, not just the women who would seem to be indicated by the title. I’ll try to write something about it in the weeks to come.

Here’s a page from my larger, 11” x 14” sketchbook with beige paper — a fast ink and wash drawing of olive trees glimpsed from the side of the road while driving in Sicily. What was helpful for me was drawing with energy and speed. I obliterated this initial drawing, unsuccessfully, with some watercolor and gouache later on, so I was glad I’d taken a quick picture of it before that. Life is like this, I think — we try things, some succeed, some don’t, and sometimes we make an utter mess of things, but then we have to turn the page and start again, confident that something better lies ahead and that we can learn from what has gone before.

The daylight has gone now; the city lights are glittering but there’s still a rosy band on the western horizon below thin, horizontal, deep blue clouds.