. Spinning .

It’s scaring me, this day, this nineteenth day of January. It signals the closely approaching end of my free time. Just as I’ve settled in and come to love the loss of learning by the books, the semester rears its ugly head once more. I have no argument with learning, just that it’s being coupled with daily deadlines; borders I must cross by Tuesdays to prepare for Wednesdays to journey deeper into words all weekends to be ready for every Mondays’challenge. But there’s so much more I’ve found to do!

Uselessly I mourn the winter’s lack of structure which I somehow didn’t know enough to map myself. Writing: None, except in here. Reading: Little, no time for pondering the words of someone long dead in body but with a spirit nibbling at my conscience every minute of every day. One thing leads to another, to another, to another to no end. I waste my time in blogging, writing blogs and reading blogs and somehow the word just has no class or intellectual sound at all. Except that…

I have learned. Without a syllabus to guide me, I have learned. I HAVE written. I HAVE read the lives and words of peers as well as wisdom left by sages on yellowed papers that magically relive on lit-up screens right here upon my desk. I have been pushed to delve deeper into life by reading how you are living yours; the thoughts on everything you seek the same as me, and different to lead me even further astray in my wonderings. Just hours ago I found The Speculist and questions on our deaths and dying habits and beliefs. Isn’t that one of our most philosophical, psychological, historical and religious questions of great concern? And this…in a weblog.

I’ve never cut myself so deeply to look inside for a soul before. In my way a tangled viscera of daily questions too life-dependent to push away without inspection.

I’m tired. I am excited. I am resolute and non-accepting. What else is there to do? I must pick up the load and move along. It ain’t heavy, it’s my life.

I really have to tell you this one—since I didn’t want to let my framing customer know about it and it just struck me funny.

The piece I was framing was a large, 24”x 36” creamy, fairly solid tatting (crochet) that I was sewing by hand-tacking in place onto a background of black velvet. First, of course, I had to lay it out flat and ease it to lie evenly on the background, and also make sure that it would not sag unevenly when it was placed upright. I had measured the piece when it first came it, but evidently I hadn’t noticed the design of it. Now, as I stood back to squint and judge if it was perfectly aligned, I could make out the pattern and was surprised to find that it was a needlework version of Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. And here’s the problem: This piece was reversible, the stitches beautifully executed by someone at least fifty years ago who didn’t even leave an uncut thread hanging to mark the back from the front. No initials woven into the pattern by the humble crafter. Desperately (on a time deadline now, since I’d procrastinated with the piece for a few weeks and promised it’d be ready today) I tried to remember which way Jesus was facing, where Judas stood in the portrait, could I go by where the fork sat in the table settings, or if something about the right hand of God applied to this piece.

Excite Search Engine to the rescue: Within seconds the image came up on my computer screen and I was able to avoid embarrassing myself with my lack of knowledge (memory, really) of the fine arts as well as religion. Ain’t computers wonderful?

In the January issue of Connecticut Life, there is an article on the American Bald Eagle, and as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve almost daily seen a nesting pair right near my house. I didn’t realize what had brought them to the area—except perhaps the fact that there’s a fish hatchery around the corner—but knew that they flew directly overhead to check out the Farmington River down the bottom of our hill, in a path dictated by their feeding spots. But the interesting part is that while I knew they were covered under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (removed in 1999, nationally), there were as few as 417 nesting pairs nationwide in 1963. There are currently only 8 nesting pairs recorded in Connecticut, and they are still considered an endangered species in this state. I’ve always been thrilled to see them these past several years, but now feel extremely lucky as well.

…opening up the frameshop this morning and finding that the half-filled coffeepot didn’t freeze.

Unfortunately, Shop Computer still hasn’t adjusted to the cold nights, and is taking his time to rouse, grumbling low within his belly his discontent and reluctance.

Writing is dependent on mood–both of the writer’s and his tools of trade. I must be out in the shop to finish up a job I’m working on–a lovely large piece of tatting–but I want to tell you more about the eagles I’ve been seeing, and an article on the current clichés to avoid.

A’ll be back.