A few early morning thoughts.

We've been condemned to be a one-car household for a while, since Elrin's car is in the shop after a horrid encounter with a rather sizable truck tire (in the middle of the night, on a highway). As a result, I get to drive him to work. It's not a bad drive (30 minutes one way), and takes us across a veritably stunning patch of land.

It is rural Appalachia, and the road weaves around the forested slopes, which are eaten by the fog in the early morning hours. Invasive kudzu covers some of these slopes, turning trees into green giants, stooping and strange. You catch these out of the corner of the eye and can swear that they move.

The car, a 4-cyllinder, 12-year old Honda, is as reliable as ever. I suppose it will begin to fail on me one day, just as old pets fail out eventually (most recent case- one of the folks' cats, from cancer of the jaw, of all things), but for now, the Honda can still take on the mountain slopes and emerge victorious. After 8 years of driving it, it's hard to adjust to being in anything else.

Inbetween thoughts of car mortality, and plans for the day, and quiet underlying admiration for the scenery, I think I'm beginning to figure out life. It's a lot more simple than "Do what you want to do, and be nice to other people", though that factors into it, too. The meaning of life is closer to "Be, without regret". We spend such an awful lot of time worrying about things that are really of little to no account. What others think of us. How to get ahead. How to afford that smart phone. As long as you've got food and a roof over your head, why should the rest matter?

There are interesting people out there, and good books available for nigh-free (cost of getting to the library, anyway), and good arts. There are also addictive video games. The world is not a bad place, and there isn't really much more you could give it, than your appreciation. And, maybe, a sort of gratitude better reserved for those that give us birth.

More arts.

Recent artsiness.





Thieves of Spring series.
6.5x9.5 inches, gouache and acrylic on wood.



Daonic theme.
12x10 inches, gouache, ink and pencil on Bristol board.



Part of an art trade, that I need to finish. Desperately.

Coming to Virginia.

To travel the mountains is to acquire a peculiar gliding sensation in your toes. It is an incessant, unforgiving routine up and down slopes, through hills which have been cut through, ones in which you can still see the vertical shafts down which they've stuffed the explosives.

It is a lesson in patience, as my Honda isn't what it used to be, and takes the slopes only with much straining and low-key grumbling. It is a car of many trips, an all-terrain vehicle that's taken the gravelly 45-degree slope back in Indiana without as much as an awkward pause. I suppose I am attached to it, in that absent-minded way that relies on the best qualities of an object without going over the top with bumper stickers and customized steering wheel covers.

Never did understand those steering wheel covers, by the way. They remind me too much of fluffy toilet-seat covers.

It's been a while since I've written anything of note. For a jack of most trades and master of none whatsoever, this is not unusual. For a person who's just gotten two degrees and now is not altogether sure what she's supposed to be striving towards now.. Well.

Elrin says that one should not live in the past and dread the future, that one should live in the present. He also says that college these days is but an extended childhood, a sentiment with which I agree. As for the former trail of his thoughts, it's hard to wrap a mind around simply existing.

What does one do? Where does one go?

--

Last night, while watching the last Futurama movie, I've gotten a text message. It was a long, drawn-out admission of love from a number that was unfamiliar. After a couple of messages back and forth, it turned out that the person's gotten a wrong number. Still, it was very exciting, just for a little while. Sort of.. mysterious.

The picture above is one of the currently-blooming NOID african violets. Kind of funny. While I was spending a month in Indiana and the plant was outside, it didn't as much as squeak.. yet as soon as it was brought indoors, it burst into bloom as though it had nothing better to do.

Maybe it didn't.

Maybe I'll call it "Reggie".