I am going to try to continue to write or post a photo every day, even if I make my post private. The other day I wrote for an hour and then deleted the whole thing. It still made me feel better to write it.
I was a diary and book making kid – I loved making autograph books of paper stapled together, and I had various hide-outs where I went to write in my diaries. One was in the crook of a large white oak tree at the edge of our property – boards were nailed to the side to get to it. I had a couple of lean-tos in woods on other people’s property that I built – one from logs and branches chinked with mud, and one from scrap wood I gathered from a trash pile. There was an abandoned old schoolhouse in that patch of woods where a farmer had stored hay for a while where I hung out. My father probably went to elementary school in that old wooden building. It finally burned down when I was an adult. I was visiting Mama at the time and I wept to see the big flames go up. And there was a spot beyond the “No Trespassing” and “Danger” signs on the dam at Page’s Millpond where I retreated as a teenager with my sketchbook and a pack of Salem Lights.
Yesterday was pretty much wasted. I have to get my sleep back on schedule. I will take melatonin tonight and a Xanax if I have to. I was awake until 4:30 a.m. this morning, not for lack of trying to sleep, but it was one of those nights that I was constantly on the edge of sleep and then the parakeets would begin to squawk, or the cat would jump on my pillow, and more often, I felt like I had to crack my knuckles or stretch my back. I thought a lot about Portugal, so I can’t spend time looking at AirBNB before I go to bed. So I was too sleepy to make the judgement to take the pills to get me over the brink. Tonight I will go ahead and do it. I have to start getting up for work on Monday morning, even though it will be from home.
I did make a few masks, and I’ll finish up the rest that I cut out this summer today. Then I’m going to begin weaving together cloth strips again.
Like many people, especially around here where, ironically, our billionaire saboteur of the Postal Service lives, I have packages waiting to be delivered that have been at the distribution center in our city for two weeks. I wish that I could just drive over and pick them up myself. I am going to try using sewing clips instead of pins once I get that package. I also ordered a wool ironing mat from the same company after a friend mentioned online how much they liked theirs.
I also will have art supplies from Rio Grande and Dick Blick waiting, I guess. I didn’t think about that when I ordered, but I think it is important to support the post office right now.
At some point this weekend, when it dries out a little, I need to go clean up my garden plot at UNCG so that someone else can have it. It will be a messy job with lots of pea and bean vines to pull out. Then I’ll have to decide whether I need to keep those wire supports or to donate them to someone else. I’ll probably give them away.
slowly she turned 