July 25, 2009

Mother’s birthday.

I finished Earthly Power this morning. I began it after I returned from New York, which was July 17. Finished in a week and a day. All day I have walked around with the buoyancy that comes with a task accomplished, and accomplished in joy. Last night I was stuck; this morning the solution, and the finish, came to me as easy as a morning dream. One of the few truths I have carried through all my days as a creator is that if you’re working too hard, you’re doing it wrong.

Painted with J for a while. Our brotherly romance has made me wonder what could have been in the past had I accepted relationships as offered, without worrying whether they were meant to be, or could be, something else. I drive past the studio twice a day, and if he’s not there I drive on, and if he’s there I climb and paint. Only that, and that is enough.

Bought a rocking chair during a brief sojourn in Weaverville the other day. It was delivered today, and I sat in it on the porch, reading the last of the Percy Jackson series and looking out over the garden. The garden erupts in primary colors, red and yellow and white, mingling into hot and cool pinks and oranges, purple at the edges like evening shadow. I am not a pure or a fussy gardener. The host of great mullein spearing the sky are volunteers, and if a weed or a seedling grows where it is not bothering anything else, I let it grow. I think in this way my garden is like the world, a balance of things planned and things unplanned, some of it beautiful by design, some of it beautiful by accident, here and there a swollen gold tomato like the fruit of the Hesperides.

Drove to a gym in South Asheville to talk with Kelly, a former student about training. I met his son, a ten year old with a hearing aid. We talked about Percy Jackson, which he finished before and I finished this evening sitting in my rocking chair. I told him I was in the scariest part, and he assured me that the ending would be “very good” and I shouldn’t be afraid.

Lots of e-mail traffic about Turtle Shell’s summer shorts, which includes my Werewolves of London. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to respond to and what let fly past me. I am glad, anyway, for the flurry of activity.