gifts

i'm not, as i say, a numbers person.

this post is number 800.

my attention has seldom been on post numbers.

this post is number 800.

geesh!

on this mighty cold day in spring, 

i just hung out the laundry and now my fingers ache from cold

(this day is colder than the winter days

i spent last june & july in melbourne,

where people were suffering from cold)

this blog post, number 800,

should perhaps be something of a milestone.

i can measure a mile, 

when numbers match up to a distance,

they make good sense to me.

this is what i will tell you:

blogging about what and why i make things 

and about my life in my middle age, certainly past the middle of my life,

sings and sails and plays all kinds of tricks.

and then the idea of gifts:

well i have, as a result of this blog,

received some amazing gifts:

the most amazing of all has been dialogue 

surrounding what it is to make things.

aimee and i are always going on (and on, and on, it seems,

fortunately to only ourselves!)

about making work.

and then it's so with all of the other friends i have,

the artist friends. 

~~~

so this little paper thing below was a gift

and behind the careful cutting of my name

i placed an ecoprint

 there was another gift

 ochre light on the brush 
that likes wet toes

 and sometimes gifts are attempted.

with the best of intentions,

but are rejected

but to you readers,

i give you a gift:

i will continue on for a while 

until i'm done with this.

and then i will stop.

~~~

a morning gift 

a gift from stephen- 
waiting for me to use in some way-
the layer of warm
from a garment 
from old japan, a place i wish
to visit someday.