Blizzard

 

 

Last night's drive from the Salt Lake City airport was a blizzard with 24 inches of snowfall at 10 PM. Windshield wipers froze on the windows, the median strip and yellow lines obliterated as the car swung from side to side over frozen snow crusted asphalt. Houses buried in snow glowed with lights inside like tiny miniature Christmas villages. I think I hear jingle bells but no it is silent except for the crunch of tires on fast falling snow.

 

 

This morning it is 4 degrees Fahrenheit and the light in this town is dazzling with blinding white rugged mountains and cobalt blue skies. My breath smokes like a dragon as I walk the plowed sidewalks in Park City, Utah.   Skiers and wannabes stamp and puff and scurry into steamy cafes for frothy lattes and cinnamon buns.  Antique shops and Art galleries open doors welcoming.

I am ready for a day around the fire at the lodge. My thrift store finds the Best. I am wearing a fake white curly lamb jacket bought for under $7 and a Peruvian wool cap for $1.  An old red plaid flannel shirt and a long skirt (made from a found shower curtain of grey ruched fabric ($2) wrapped and pinned and secured with a man's black belt)  is worn over  black wool leggings.  All this bottomed off with black jump boots and for color and warmth a blue argyle sock tied around my throat !  My backpack full of Agatha Christie mysteries, sketchbook, and Sharpie pens.

 

Rainy Day GoodWill

Black clouds in early morning make the coffee extra good as I sit on the little covered porch and watch the pouring rain, the blackbirds gathering in the chartreuse grass, the waterspouts gushing.  Perfect day to browse at the local thrift store. I have a special mission.

The kids are coming to the beach house for a week. Good gracious survival tactics needed.  Surviving in the bush among wild beasts was good preparation.  In the Serengeti the camp boys drew on my shirt, comical, delightful creatures dancing front and back.  Taking inspiration from Vivienne Westwood's Gold Label Collection of 2008 I will have the kids paint clothing.  Scouting Goodwill for light colored cotton shirts, skirt and pants, I buy at no more than $3 whatever offers a smooth surface.  It was a purple half price day and I was in luck, white oxford cloth boys shirts for the little guys, a khaki Safari shirt for the big guy, and for the girls a white linen blouse, a green dress, and a wide brim straw hat.  They will all will be covered in paint before long.

I buy fabric paint and face paint, brushes and plastic rolls. Prepare some African drum music to get the kids in the mood. Excitement builds as I imagine creative juices flowing through little fingers. Think I'll title the happening "The Enchantment".

Writing Company

 

 

I dress today in newly found Goodwill clothing. A long denim skirt with Peruvian embroidered leather belt, a plaid ruffled blouse and a velvet beret. (Total of $12!!)  My notebook stuck in an old leather satchel. Purple sunglasses complete the look as I prepare to discover coffee houses in Seattle, Washington.  Starbucks was born in this city partly because of the cool wet weather. I take along my notebook to record the adventure I seek.

Staring at Eliot, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Parker, Joyce, Nabokov, Orwell, Kafka they are having a ball drinking wine and absinthe, smoking, wearing hats pulled low over slicked back foreheads, bundled in overcoats against the chill of sitting in an unheated pub. Dark rainy late afternoon somewhere in Dublin, Prague, Vienna.  Some engage in wild debate, some sip coffee absently, some read from an open book, some tell jokes, some grin at another woman, some grin at me.

They wear brown, steel, crème, ochre, sienna, most men in neckties, women in wool jackets, scarves, cloche hats. The café is dark, smoky, dimly lit by curtains and grime. But they are in the company of genius.

I sit on a stool at a small red Formica table against the wall. A woman in a pastel fleece, clutching a flowered Vera Bradley bag and a paper cup of coffee is reading her Nook, slumped so much I am sure she is asleep until she flicks the new page with a lazy finger. Large couples enters carrying heavy leather satchels, wearing business suits and one opens  a red spiral notebook and begins  talking loudly. More people enter all of them fat ordering Frappuccino’s and brownies. Where is the poetry?

Outside the sky is cobalt blue, and the trees are flaming scarlet and gold, a bite in the air, a zip in the step, the poetry is there not here.

I want to discover. There must be something here not just for that company of genius.

Two fat geezers enter in shorts, a red long tee shirt, bald, with big white sneakers, the other wearing a black cowboy hat, grey tee shirt and jeans. He lays down a pack of cards, and a backgammon board. They order coffee, bottles of water, large plastic cups filled with ice, two bagels with crème cheese, enter in their gift card numbers. Their voices rise in volume.  I find the poetry now.  It is out the door and I leave for the scarlet trees.

Painter's Smock

Found this delightful grey smock in the Plus Size rack for $5 a sequined tank for $2 and rayon sienna colored trousers for $1.00.  Terrific painting outfit I say. Who cares if a little oil paint gets spattered about on an outfit under $10? And I am ready for the patrons and collectors who gather outside my studio door in search of the latest and best paintings. Certainly they would be more impressed with an artist who wears an outfit such as this as opposed to a ragged tee shirt and dirty jeans.  I will wear the combo many times. It will inform my work. I will paint in colors of sienna, Payne’s grey, shrimp, and add a little bit of aubergine. Soon I will show you the results. 

I am thinking of Zanzibar, of the dark, back alleys and the smoky nights, and the warm colors. Hauntings and Memories I will try to pull out of the brush.   Gather the jangles of bicycles and twitter of birds. Capture the festive streets with merchants peddling hand crafted wears from tiny shops open to the air.

I will travel through memory now in my painter’s smock.

Brit

Off to Oxford in The United Kingdom wearing Goodwill finds all discounted to half price! Red plaid flannel patchwork skirt at $3' complimented by the bold stripe sweater at $2.50, a khaki men's shirt at $2 and the purple flowered felt hat full price at just $2.99. Total outfit under $12. This is How I save money for plane tickets.

There is a book store I must visit there where writers gather and reputations are formed. Adjoining this ancient book store is a coffee shop. I know of a number of writers who were discovered there and received enormous contracts with important houses. I will take the first chapter of my novel and read it at the Friday night open mike.

Surely this red hat and stripe sweater will draw notice and the jolting beginning of my book will sear me into the imagination of the audience. Cowboy boots will identify my independent spirit. Only a satchel containing my precious papers is needed to complete this voyage. They will beg for more.

Chaos

EEEEGADS!  Life in CHAOS.  My house upside down, my gear in a huge mess, provisions locked behind boards and plastic. I can't reach my underwear buried in a cupboard taped up and hidden under sheets of plastic. My hairbrush has disappeared. I wear flip flops to the market in 50 degree weather because I can't find my socks. The same pair of paint stained cargo pants I wore ten years ago have graced my body for three days now.

Awaking at 7 in the morning I looked out and saw the driveway full of white vans, ladders, drop cloths, and 5 men. They were ready to paint the inside and outside of my house. I thought one painter was coming to scout the situation but here was a team limbering up their paintbrushes. Still in a robe I grabbed my collection of hanging necklaces off the wall and laid them out on the bed, collected my toothbrush, stuffed pajamas from the back of the bathroom door onto the floor of my closet, along with the jumbled up shoes, belts, bags and dirty clothes. Grabbed clean underwear and work clothes just in time as the rolls of plastic flew over and buried all. What could be moved from one room was moved to another and like a game of musical chairs all that was familiar was swept away and relocated. My pillbox was under a pillow, my watch in a strange drawer, my mascara in a box with pencils, and the color I had chosen for the walls was terribly wrong. STOP the MACHINE!

It could have been a tornado that hit so the disconbobulation of having your house painted is mild. When chaos strikes with household explosion my defense is to lay back, smile and reassess. All this stuff!! Freshly painted the rooms look pure, clean, and sublime. Peace melts over me in that empty new room. I am tempted to throw everything out to live an uncluttered life.  After boxing up fourteen boxes of books I have decided to donate at least half of them to the library. Family heirlooms will be sent to family members without their consent to do with as they wish. Spare dishes, music boxes, linens, and  clothes will be donated to Goodwill. I will use my best and donate the rest.

So much I can live without.