something's happening

I'm just not exactly sure what.
I got a clue, though, while I was drawing in one of my favorite places in the world:

Skaneateles.

Aptly and justly nicknamed Jewel of the Finger Lakes.

Anyway, I found myself not doing the work to actually look at things, work with them, be with them, create them as living as I could on the page. I was taking shortcuts.

On one drawing I actually scrawled: "Lazy!"

As a description of myself. 

I don't recommend name-calling as part of one's self-talk repertoire, but there it is. It happens.

I felt BORED.

I seldom feel bored.

But again, there it is. It happens.

I think boredom - or at least, my boredom - is a sign of emotional exhaustion. It becomes difficult to care, so you don't. And because you don't care, you don't pay attention, and the world of beautiful gesture, color and detail no longer reveals itself to you.

That's ok.

If I'm emotionally, mentally, physically exhausted, it means I need to rest.

I might have to step back, rethink some things, get a new perspective.

The next day I looked at this maple seed and it was beautiful:

So I spent some time with it, immersing myself in its gradations of color, its subtle undulations, its presence, weight and weightlessness.

That felt good.

skaneateles

Skaneateles is one of my favorite places on Earth.
The lake reaches right up to the edge of the town, or rather the town reaches right into the lake. The water is clear. Ducks abound. In summer, you can run from the porch of the Sherwood Inn straight down the grassy hill into the water. In winter, thick ice forms on the surface of the lake. Sometimes it breaks into huge clashing plates that make an eerie sound when the wind blows.

The hills in the distance across the lake look pink, green, blue, gray, depending on the weather and the time of day. Boats appear: big touring ones, little sailboats, kayaks, paddle rafts.

The town is kitschy, like the one I grew up in, but lovable, again like the one I grew up in. Its antique stores and thrift stores and libraries burst with the history of the people who live there and have lived there. I picture them all like my Quaker and Puritan relatives: reading crumbly leather-bound books at night, grinding coffee by hand in the morning. Their spirit, strong, stern, boundedly but bloomingly beautiful, lives in every eave and hedge and curb and curve of Skaneateles.

2 views: one while I was there, one a memory-reflection that evening.

stained glass

I love stained glass of all kinds. There is nothing like the color that is light filtered through richly colored glass.

I tried to go into a church today to see what it looked like from the inside, but when I opened the inner door (the outer door stood open) I found I had intruded on a concert! I closed the door again quickly and hoped that no one had noticed the split second of outside that I let in.

still hankering to travel

Skaneateles, I miss you!