The Duke of NY.

Islands of good in a sea of bad.

Good:

- My Matte Stephens 'The Duke of NY' fox print with the bizarre smoke came in the mail today! Thanks Grandma, it is awesome. I opened the door timidly wearing nothing but my Hoopers kimono and prayed to God that the man behind the voice, behind the door wouldn't be a psycho killer. The kind of killer who lures half dressed women out of their apartments by calling out, "Mail, Miss Kroeker!" or by playing a tape recording of a baby crying. I would SO fall for that. Anyway, it was only the mailman and we chilled for a bit and I talked about how awesome this Matte Stephen dude's art is. I think the mailman was pretty excited to carry on. Whatever.

- I got a new job at my old job. Come January I will be the soup lady. A soup cook, I am really psyched about it. After yesterday's melt down marathon, this is really good news at a really opportune time. Monday to Friday I will be in the kitchen, making my own hours, cleaning and chopping and stirring making soup for the nations. Well, for the Jews and the elderly Mennonite at least. Again, I am pretty excited to have weekends to spend in the Exchange making stuff beside the big windows that look down on Albert Street.

- Four days ago, I received keys to my first studio space in a building on Albert Street. Sula and I are sharing and I am really looking forward to the things that are going to go on in that room because of we will be working in such small quarters together. Magic, that's what's going to happen. If my art sucks I will just baby a tonne of plants along the sill. My art sucks. But my new print is lovely!

- Today, a draft for the final project at Martha street is due. 'City' is the theme and as broad as that is I am having a hard time coming up with something original to print keeping in mind we are only to use a four color registration and the stock sheet is 5X7. Yikes.

Bad:

- I didn't get to hang out with my friend Kelly's newborn, Madeline. Two more days, two more days. Nothing trumps holding a newborn. EVER. EVER. EVER. On that note, Laura, the Babies are Beautiful pin you sent to me is worn on my ex love's messenger bag with serious pride. Welcome back to this frivolous side of the blogosphere. Your presence and opinion were deeply missed.

- I am still poor as piss, but optimistic!


Okay, that is enough. I am off to the library to do some research on these potential topics for inspiration: Storks, bowties, fruit stands and mailmen for my final print. One more thing, my class is having a kind of silly art opening party at Martha Street Studio just behind the Concert Hall to showcase our collective work as participants in this year's Youth Outreach Program kindly funded by your tax dollars. We want to say thanks by hanging up our work, untying our aprons and serving champagne and cubes of sharp cheddar and brie to whomever decides to show up. That show will be on December 16th. I am a little embarrassed about my work but some of the other people in my class made some prints worth coming out for. I will post more on this later.

Best, M.

Waste not, want not.

The only thing that pulled me through the day today was the thought of two very good women ascending upon this town like birds upon the shoulders of Saint Francis of Assisi come late December. I woke up today and cried for a little bit at the state of my finances. It was one of those mornings where you wake with great plans for all the meals, so many people to see, things to tick off a mental list, subjects to take risky photos of swirling around one's head, things to do, books to buy. Andrea made me promise to go out and buy a book today; one by her beloved, Cormac McCarthy, that she swore would change my taste in books forever and yet I couldn't get past the threshold. Not to mention the feeling of being locked in my apartment; guilty of treason. I betrayed my meagre budget this month by simply living and enjoying winter. Too many bottles of wine bought, extra food thrown out in garbage bags that will never degrade back into the earth. So much waste, so much want.

Anyway, I sat there crying until I had had enough blubbering and eventually padded to the kitchen in my socks, and grilled a cinnamon bun in butter just because I felt like it. To hell with my body. It is winter, I am switching gears. At one point I called my trusty mother and sobbed into the phone and swore her to secrecy of my pathetic state. She was ever gracious and patient and reflecting on her reassuring levelheadedness made me sob even harder because I am lucky to have her. I am writing this because for the most part, I think it is normal for uneducated twenty two year olds happily working at a dead-end job to cry in the interim until payday decides to make face again. It is not to say that I am unhappy where I am employed, I love my job and the daily interactions that I share with regulars is worth more than a paycheck six times it's usual size. With all this said, I have a few plans that sadly involve a hefty chunk of scrilla. Dolla dolla bills. Cashflow. Money.

I want to go to an art school somewhere great, or some school for design, printmaking, graphic design, furniture design, blah blah blah. I want to do a lot that could potentially come fairly naturally with proper schooling and practice, but none of this feels attainable today. So, I will have to reside to work a little harder than I had intended for winter and so be it. Chin up.

Mum, thanks for listening and talking to me like I was in Kindergarten. I probably sounded about five on the phone. It's cool now, I am okay. Still dancing with destitution, but okay. To all you steppers out there feeling poor, rearrange your bedroom; it helps. I did.

m

Golden Ticket.

I wish I painted this. This is how I would like all my work to feel, to look. It is a reworked Ike and Tina album cover by someone and it is awesome. It is all I think about these days. Today in the kitchen, I thought about it for about an hour. I was so joyful standing there pausing for a moment to let the image flutter to a standstill in between stirring and sighing. How wonderful. I hope someone stops what they are doing to momentarily think about my art someday.

This post is inspired entirely by Miss Rabbi Budyk, who filled out this self-interview on her own post and I liked her style of Q&A so much so that I decided to try one on for size. I have been in a creative slump lately (since my bad printing experience) and this was just the ticket. Thanks for the Golden Ticket Babs; you are the Wonka to my Charlie. If you want to read her version click on this jazz. She is brilliant.

Self-Interview--
space: my bedroom, a sanctuary of sleep.
time: dipping into the blackest part of night.
sounds: radiators, three of them.
eats: chips, salt and vinegar crumbs.
liquids: the last of the red wine, from a glass.


DESCRIBE YOUR CHILDHOOD IN A SINGLE WORD:
unapologetic


WHAT WERE YOU LIKE AS A LITTLE GIRL?
I was a showman, the concept of 'to be seen and not heard' was just that, seen and not heard. I was known for being hyper sensitive, intuitive as a child to other peoples hurt even though I had no idea what to do with it, annoying, sheltered, and a story teller. I liked being in charge and still do. Being alone was imperative after school and on weekends, especially in winter when it got dark early enough that I could roam the bush before dinner. I wanted to be an artist, I wanted to be good at everything and wept when I wasn't. Things haven't change a bit.

DID YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE BOOK OR FAIRYTALE?
I read Laura Ingalls Wilder's 'Little House on the Prairie' series until each of the eight or so books turned to leather. I read before bed religiously (and still do). The first book that I read well was called 'Wheel Away', I was so psyched when I realized I could read. It was like stepping into this parallel universe that was way cooler than earth and school and swimming lessons. Reading man, yeah! The book 'Animalia' is totally insane. As far as a favorite book now, hard to say. Maybe Kundera's 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being', as I have read it the very most.


AND HOW HAS THIS CHILDHOOD AFFECTED YOU AS A GROWN-UP?
I believe everyone is entitled to a happy childhood and sadly not everybody gets that. I was one of the lucky ones. Anyone who knows me knows that. I was also one of the only 15 year olds still playing, when a lot kids in that age group were testing the sexual waters and doing drugs. I hope to always be open to explore things with a childlike curiosity, especially in art. Kids are perceptive and simple. I like that approach in order to maintain a full and balanced lifestyle, personally. It would not work for everyone I suppose, but that is what makes my upbringing unique. I feel like one of the lucky ones.


WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE ITEM OF CLOTHING?
My fifteen dollar Kimono. Whether I wear it dressed up or paired with nudity, I always feel like a million bucks. I also have one outfit that I like to pull out on VERY special occasions: The first dress JJ designed in my honor (I still haven't paid you, oh my God) with the Crow jacket. The Crow jacket is very special. I bought it off Michelle Isaac who found it at some emptying-my-closet-because-my-wife-of-one-hundred-years-just-died sale, for real cheap. It was one of those pieces that sings out your name in high pitched angelic notes from across a room. It doesn't matter if it's four thousand dollars or four dollars, you have to have it because it is an extension of yourself. When I wear that, I am one hundred percent myself.

DOES CREATIVITY COME EASILY TO YOU?
Naturally yes, easily no. Yes. I am hesitant to say yes. Seasonally, yes. If I think about it too much it dissipates like a mirage. It can be a tease, it can be the most rewarding thing I do. It is a vehicle of bliss and destruction. When I get too excited and caught up I come off pompous and arrogant, when I am frustrated I come upon windows of near genius or fluidity. Whatever creativity is to me on whatever day it is in whatever mood I am in, it moves me. The direction is irrelevant.

WHAT DID YOU LAST DREAM ABOUT?
It was terrible. Two married people and their baby, a great Gatsby house party, Josh in a three piece suit again, a dead woman who was not actually dead in the Gatsby house, just comatose. Natalia V's three children in striped onesies. It was bizarre and heartbreaking and beautiful and poetic.

WHERE DO YOU CONSIDER HOME?
My living room in winter, with another person lounging, a number of pairs of pants open a wee bit from overeating, wine on the coffee table an arms reach away, brie and bagette, vinyl on the turntable. There, or stationed around one of the matriarchal dining room tables belonging to the wise women of my family: Grandma, mum, Tante Daryl, Tante Marj. These women's tables have the ability to transform. We gather, stitch, bitch, eat, play scrabble, scrapbook, talk art, talk politics without a single Fox News reference or regurgitation, do the crossword in pen, talk orchids, talk shop, craft, cry, and cream our jeans over each other's foooooooooood. They are unreal. I feel very at home around those tables for very different reasons. One table represents nostalgia, one is safe, one represents laughter, and the other honesty.

WHAT DO YOU HOPE FOR?
Love and the unapologetic sacrifices I will make to keep it (real).

WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP?
First and foremost, an ambulence driver. Then I went through a big Chiropractor phase and then I wanted to be a fashion designer, graphic designer, botanist, baker, cook (I still do) and writer. Now I am not sure. Maybe a printer? There are not enough of them.

WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE?
Here, there. Oregon for a bit, Germany for sure.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SONG TO GO TO SLEEP TO?
Sawdust and Diamonds by Joanna Newsom.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SONG TO WAKE UP TO?
Every morning I wake to Yosh singing 'Woman at the Well' accompanied by Shannon Laliberte. It starts my day off on a joyful hop. If I am willing to wake up on time I will sing along. If not, I don't.

TELL US A SECRET:
I never said goodbye to James and I feel horrible. I want to cross country ski and quit all my other hobbies and commitments. I just want to ski by myself on the river.

WHAT WAS YOUR BEST, SCARIEST HALLOWEEN COSTUME EVER?
Mad Scientist, Grade Three; hands down. There was even a set of ears that you could put on like an uncomfortable hand band that had a string you could pull back and forth through the ears. I had a bald cap and drowned in one of my Dad's rejected Sunday suits and a jar of red Kool-Aid to complete the look. I felt so ahead, so cool.

BAM, YOU HAVE FIVE CHILDREN. NAME THEM.

I only want four:
- First born, daughter: Frances
- Second born, son: Magnus
- Third born, twin, son: Elliott
- Third born, twin, daughter: Mave

Bon nuit, M. Thanks Rabbi, you're the boss.

Babe kid.

This is Kaleb. He is my cousin and I think he is pretty much the shit. No, he is the shit. He is three. He is James and Christine's wee one and soon to be a big brother. More babies, yes; these people should keep having babies.

Knowing you, knowing me.

My dear Lo,

I saw this. I thought of you. Because of this and the great feeling of sadness I felt upon seeing it, I am going to go put on another pot of tea and finish your letter once and for all. I wish I would have that gentle knowing inside me that I would be at your Christmas table this December. Until we see each other again, here is a short letter, a promise of a longer one in the mail, and one great mustache. I miss you.

With love, Madge.

Stolen from The Selby. Without permission, as always.

Classwork only cupboard.

My hands are splattered with mint green here and raspberry red there. I started putting my freshly burnt silk screens to work yesterday at Martha Street in the upstairs studio and fought back tears the entire three hour class. It was just Michelle, the sixteen year old anarchist boy (who I found out loves Kernels popcorn), and some dude named Jan. Jan pronounced 'Yawn'. Yawn. We worked at different paces and I couldn't get the flooding technique down. As it turns out my left hand is weaker than my right. Funny, the boys had no problem. It ticked me off as I always thought I had strong hands. Something was affecting my art making and I was angry and frustrated because of it. Acting strangely identical to the hyper-sensitive twelve year old girl in the Gap overalls I thought I left in my past was a gentle reminder to me that no matter how much we convince ourselves that we have changed, we are who we are. We will be who we will be. So there, I still fought back the tears for the simple reason that I wasn't good at something I thought should come naturally off the hop. Eventually I got it, after my new teacher brusquely intervened (and was a giant jerk about it). SORRRRRRY. My color choices were inspired by thoughts of Christie, Erin and Janique. Anyone reading this who knows those beauties can guess what I chose according to their personalities: Mint, chartreuse and dusty rose. Obviously. The colors were not used all at once of course, but for separate prints. It was quite fun opening up that 'Classwork Only' cupboard and seeing sixty plus inks to choose from. It was like a little window of the Lord being opened up in a dramatic gush of cool seaside air with sparkles and gold dust highlighted by some unseen background orchestra. Do you ever experience those 'aggggggggh ha' moments? I do not have them enough.

It was a breath of fresh air in all my angst. That will be my heaven; a cupboard full of inks and a kind art teacher putting an index finger under my chin hanging open in awe and saying, "go ahead, gem; knock 'em dead with your chaotic colors". And I did. And I did. And I did.

And I will (in my heaven). My heaven will also have long tables laden with food and candles and Sufjan Stevens singing "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" over and over and over again with a banjo in some low lit corner.

Anyway, It was great fun. Silk screening at long last; save for the jerk teacher and the almost tears.

Blah, no news is good news.

Judy the beauty.

Marry me, beautiful yellow haired suspender clad man.

Too bad I am not dating right now. The train of opportunity carrying it's weight in good looking men rolled through the Graffiti Gallery last night and for the better part of the evening I stood and stared at people. Standing in the middle of the art show chaos, dipping gingersnaps in coffee, staring. My prowling boots were uncontrolable. To Andrea Wong, Michelle and Sea Bass, please pardon my state of distraction. It couldn't be helped.

More to come.

Foul ball, Jeff Landry.

"I will have two eggs basted medium please, no toast, back bacon and coffee with room. And water, brilliant. Thank you".

Alfie walked into the bakery wearing my aunt's old winter coat with the fur-trimmed hood up just as I was leaving and he whisked me and my winter ride up and away in the giant right hand drive truck that makes everyone smile. I couldn't help but smile, sitting high up in the cab watching one of my best friends at the wheel shifting with ease out of the corner of my eye. We drove and I counted smiles of people taking a moment from side stepping puddles and slop like ponies on the sidewalk to stare.

We ate our greasy breakfast at an ungainly pace, too fast for eleven in the morning but it couldn't be helped. The back bacon was delicious. Last night I barely got two and a half hours of sleep. My conscience kept me up for most of the night until some creases were smoothed over in a torrent of text messages being hurled across the city like a rainstorm of bullets. Hurtful, efficient bullets. Eventually, I swallowed my pride and admitted defeat, stepped down from the high horse in my head and hung my head in shame. Self-righteous, self-absorbed, self-pitying, self-centered. Self, self, self, no room in the Inn. I am sorry. I slept at last as the words escaped both out of my lungs aloud to myself in the sleepy apartment and as they went soaring through the air to some one else's sleepy apartment.

I don't feel better, but I don't feel worse. My throat is itchy today. No amount of clearing or fake coughing or tea seem to help.

There was a fake mustache stuck to my desk leftover from the bachelorette party I hosted in September and without thinking I peeled it off and promptly stuck it to my face. I am still wearing it, even though it feels ridiculous. I don't know why I wrote that. The scratchiness matches the scratchiness of my throat. It is stuck back to the desk. Looking at it makes me think of Laura and the piles of letters I have, not quite complete, but soon to be sent eastwards.

Today I am going to learn silk screen and I am really excited. The last time I silk screened was back in Grade Nine when all I could think about was Jeff Landry and his trademark laugh that belonged to that of a dog. A big, dopey, friendly dog. I was too preoccupied with this pubescent vision to focus on something that could someday be my bread and butter. Oh Jeff Landry, you distracted me so well and singlehandedly stole my hand-holding virginity under a stained Mickey Mouse blanket in your basement when I was 15. You tried so hard to seduce me that night, to lure me into your bedroom in Morris, Manitoba for a hardcore makeout session during a quick movie intermission. You were so confident that your charm, straight teeth and hand holding abilities would be all the convincing I would need to up the ante. I was pious and stubborn as all get out--even at that age--and took to the safety of the burber carpet of your bedroom floor in lieu of the gross, unmade bed. Jeff, you gave up pretty quickly and we eventually went back to the family room. Billy and Robin were making out so hard it was laughable. I think I erupted at the sight of them and at that moment knew I was not cut out to be a teenage tart or a practicing Lolita by any means. At 15 I still wanted to climb trees and be Harriet the Spy.

I still do.

My throat isn't itchy anymore. Thanks for distracting me Jeff Landry, but tonight I will only have eyes for the lesson.

School work.

My second cousin and friend Chris invited me to his school for a project he is working on for his Graphic Design program at the Red River Princess campus. His project, still in the newborn stages of production is based on ladies who ride bicycles. I rode down, bejeweled and lipsticked and fur hatted and shined up old Jessica Alba for her first legitimate photo shoot. Pictures to come. This is me killing time in the empty classroom while he was accounted for in attendance one door down.



Post script: Dear Grandma, I took the liberty of expecting yet another cheque at Christmas Eve inside an MCC sale mitten and went ahead and ordered the Fox print that I posted yesterday. Thank you for the wonderful piece of art for Christmas Grandma and Grandpa, you (and your fifty dollar bill) have great taste in art, if I may be so bold.

I love you two gems, Megsie.

Post post script: Grandma, let's play Scrabble soon and eat shnudda zoup please. I have been practicing like mental, and I am going to kick your sweet sweet ass.

Post post post script: Here are some pictures of my home taken just a quick minute ago. For interests sake. I was happily bored this afternoon. Days off at my house are a rarity and usually end up spent reading, dressing up in fakey mustaches and top hats, cooking, baking, or cleaning. This morning I woke up early early to clean, make breakfast, make a pot of tea and sip from a china teacup while catching up on the only TV show I watch, Gossip Girl, at my kitchen table. Wonderful day.

Fox thought.

Today I worked for eight hours in complete silence. I have never done that before. It is not to say that I was upset or angry or even the slightest bit bothered, I just needed a quiet day. So I sliced cucumbers and tomatoes and made three kinds of salad dressing and kneaded dough and sprinkled coconut on things and stirred five gallon pails of stuff in utter silence. It was nice hearing my hands at work. Everyone else was thrown for a loop by my tranquility and were quiet as well. Four pairs of hands working at once.

For the better part of the morning I was quite blank, content simply stirring and ticking things off my list one contented tick at a time; smiling a modest smile, getting shit done in the kitchen of the bakery with my apron getting filthier as the hour hand pressed on into the day. In the afternoon I spent a great deal of time thinking about graphic design and printing and printmaking and one illustration by Matte Stephens in particular.




This untitled image bobbed around the forefront of my head for a number of hours today and it's not the first time I have spent time thinking about it either. For the past few days I have come back to it, turned it over and over in my head as if this is the end-all be-all of art. It is just a simple suit clad fox with graphic, colorful smoke pouring out of his smoking pipe but it has wedged itself on some prized showcase shelf in my head. I don't know what it is about it; I cannot for the life of me put my finger on it. But I like it and I wanted to share it.

I wish I wasn't so careful and obsessive when it comes to freehand drawing. The Fox illustration is such a simple piece if you think of it and really look at it. The colors would be very time consuming to mix just so, to find the perfect blend of pure color and dirty color but still nothing comes when I sit down to draw. This is just something I have been frustrated with lately. Painting is easier, but this drawing business is something else altogether. Sometimes on days like today when my hands are setting the pace of my thought process with menial tasks like mincing garlic or chopping parsley or scrubbing cast iron, I let myself dream about making a living (paycheck to paycheck of course) doing something I love like printmaking, or cooking or illustrating. I often forget that people actually get paid for those things. Wild.

All of this is meaningless, I just felt like writing it down.

Last things last.

Exhibit A.)






















Exhibit B.)



First things first.

Exhibit A.) These people are babes. Grey scale dream couple. God bless Europe and Rio.

Exhibit B.) Those pants. Those legs. Goodness gracious, what a pair of pins for a man. Home boy knows what's up.



Last things last.

First, I need to stop stuffing my face with Saltines and eat something straight up proper. No balogna, right JJ? Right.
Second, I need to sleep one night without coughing up a lung. That would be nice.

At home with staying home.

On Monday I was riding around town jacketless, toqueless, gloveless, sockless, trying to soak up the last of the year's warmth. Today I rode around town with slits for eyes, gloved, scarfed, toqued, helmeted, layered, rain geared, spandexed, trying to dodge tidal waves and car doors and gale force winds. I have never been as psyched on biking as I am today. Just to spite the weather, I suited up and hopped on my freshly tuned bicycle and ripped around town all afternoon before heading down to Martha Street studio for a few hours of printing.

It felt damn good to waltz into the basement soaked to the bone, everything messy and splattered--my cycling shoes near ruined--and receive two curt nods of approval from the anarchist enthusiasts in my class who also rode down, considering the treacherous conditions. Approval is not the reason I cycle. It is charming, but I ride because the rush of whipping in between traffic during rush hour and skidding effortlessly in the fresh slush blanketing our city behind buses and being pulled forward by the wind while riding fixed is an addiction. It is always an upper, no matter how close to death I come. I usually have a pretty solid course mapped out in my head when I leave Martha Street and head for home, but today I chose to let the wind take the wheel. Besides, doing corners and cutting through alleyways on my summer slicks in the snow is never a good idea. A fierce south tailwind took me all the way down Main and I felt every bit a salmon swimming against stream. People laughed at me from the inside warmth of their cars but it felt really nice to know I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Learning bike mechanics and being able to talk shop with fellow enthusiasts has been the best thing to happen to me this year. There is such a sense of placement and self worth that comes with owning and riding a fixed gear bicycle. If you ride one, you know that feeling. It springs and swells from a foreign place deep down. Sorry to get all uppity over this, but really, the fluidity and oneness that comes from riding direct drive is different from anything I have ever experienced.

There was just something that came over me today about. I am not sure if it was the arrival of snow that triggered something inside of my brain or if it acted as a reminder of the fiscal year to date. Shit went down last winter and cycling was my form of therapy. No bones about it. When I lost majority of (who I thought were) my friends and my reputation along with them, my appreciation for moments of happiness and lightness that came out of that season of absolute solitude sky rocketed. Even though those stormy swells have long calmed, that appreciation for time spent alone has remained.

Two or so months ago I dumpstered this giant black framed white cork board as wide as my arm span and as tall as my sister. I carried it home from the Village on my back and propped it against the wall above my couch. It didn't take long for me to run out of pins. Slowly but surely it has been filled with bits and pieces that make me laugh aloud, photos that I have printed under the watchful eye of Jane, letters sent to me from my gal Loco in Montreal, a feather, clippings, letters from Beth, negatives, one-offs of prints that I have made at Martha, a prized love letter that a mysterious bike courier tucked into my back spokes of my bicycle, a childhood Swiss necklace from Janique, things that remind me of Rabbi, pictures of Erin and I, a tape measure, things that remind me of JJ, pictures of Janique, Will, James and I at Falcon Beach in summer; things like that. Looking at it when I wash dishes or just pass from room to room in my apartment makes me smile. It has been a year of growth, rejection, heartbreak, laughter, missing, sadness, inspiration, rebirth, learning, love, understanding, creativity, production, drama, healing.

I am twenty two and I know myself. This has been the first year that I truly know myself. My personality is no longer a grab bag and the roots of my values, work ethic and beliefs are winding deeper than ever before. New, but strong. I don't know if it took being broken open in a cafe and humiliated last Winter, or high tailing it to Switzerland with the only goal being to become a nameless, reputationless, faceless, languageless ghost, or if it was being heart broken by a man who I was ready to move mountains for. Whatever it was, all of these things were humbling and good for me. Five months ago I never would have thought I would be wearing an apron and inking up phonebooks making art in a studio, being bossy at Art City, eating pad thai in a warm dining room with a woman who singlehandedly changed my life in a single night, having breakfast with another woman who has also changed my life by being gracious, curling up beside a lady who has been my best friend all along and comparing battle wounds, writing gospel songs in a giant sun porch with the best man friend a girl could ever find, or looking forward to a reclusive winter holed up on Albert street elbow to elbow with fellow collaborating artists.

All of these things went through my head at a lightening pace today while riding home. Winter hath arriveth and I am alive. Alive and happy. It feels good. All of this feels good.

I am without words today and have no idea how to translate my sweeping thankfulness for all of these things and then some. Last year at this time I was learning to play chess with an Australian babe in Berlin. We hauled a cushioned receiving bench away from the wall in the hall of our hostel and parked it and set up the ancient chess set. Our legs straddling it and our feet wound around the skinny legs like two silly kids on a floral piano bench at the reject table at Christmas. A bottle of wine passed back and forth from my hand to his hand to my hand to his hand with every move and I retained nothing of the lesson except for the sweet memory of it. Funny, as much as a brilliant trip as it was with Rabbi and Kitty, I am psyched to be home. Europe will always be there, this feeling will not.

I am twenty two and at home with the idea of staying home.

MARGARET.