from far away

 

Dear Waiting, 

They say good things come to those who wait.  I dunno.  I do know, that some things have come to me, that I never expected to arrive.  For example, the Pine Siskin- it is a bird that is in my range, my area, but for years (like 16!) I never saw one at my feeder, but then I did see them!  

For a long time I searched the skies for a condor; I live near(ish) to their historical range and the range they set about recover the species in.  I first saw one at the Grand Canyon, and that was a delight, but then, after another wait, then I saw them in Pinnacles National Park.  They are always there in Pinnacles, from my experience, and one day, I will look out my window and see one here.  

But that is about further waiting.  My message today is about what has arrived, despite years of unlikely wait.  This year, the aurora arrived at my back porch!  No more hunting it, it came to me!  I can hardly believe my good luck.  

I took a long trip, like one does, to see Yellowstone National Park some years back- when you go there, you have a list of things you want to see so you can award yourself imaginary badges.  You might see bear, bison, geysers, mud pots, elk, bighorn sheep, moose, beaver, otter, and wolves.  We saw bison, geysers, and mud pots- I don't call it a failure, but it isn't all that many badges, considering.  I went to Alaska, too, where you are almost guaranteed an orca and a bear, but those badges will have to wait.  Also, you might see wolves.

Can you guess where I may next be going?  Well, I am not going anywhere, because now, the wolves, the darling wolves, the wolves of all your fairy tales and metaphorical fears, are coming to me!  I can't wait!

PS  You probably can't wait to hear that song again, either, and you don't have to!

an idea

 

Dear Reader,

Maybe we should send each other photos of what we see while we are waiting.  I was waiting in the coffee shop and saw this shadow on the espresso machine.  What do you see where you are waiting right now?

how it was

 Journal Dressing, Carol Ann Carter.  Burns, stitching, tea, mixed media on linen, 20 x 31".

Dear The Future,

I wrote all this out for you, so you'd know how it was back then.  But, it was lost, misplaced, and so it has remained, missing for three years.  I am going to start again, from the beginning.

Here is how it really was:  I was put into the care of two nice people, as a baby.  My real parents' were a raven and a rainstorm.  For a long time it confused me that the two nice people would tell me to 'be quiet' and not to be 'bossy,' because these words made no sense in my language.  Still, we got on well enough.  

I spent an enormous amount of time waiting; in cars, in parking lots.  It's funny though, because I like sitting in cars, and I like parking lots too; even though there was so much time spent in them.   I used to look up at the cream colored headliner of the car's backseat, and focus beyond it; the perforations in the vinyl would move towards me; I tried to get the pattern of dark holes to descend close enough to touch my nose.

When the car was moving, the moon was always with me, following for hours, never overtaking, never slipping behind, always right there.

When moving, in this way, there were so many wonderful intersections!  The airplane going crosswise, just over the tip of the pine, the train on the overpass just when I was under; all these amazing nodes of space and time.  Anyway, that's what I saw, and that is how I began to think.

the waiting

 

Dear Typists and Sketchbook Users,

My typewriter was out; getting cleaned and repaired.  It's back now, and I used it to finish up my sketchbook to be sent to the Brooklyn Art Library.  They have this great sketchbook project, see, where you can purchase a little empty book, fill it up, and send it back to their shelves where it can live, waiting for someone to look at it.  

It's a beautiful notion, and I hope someone will go and find my little book.  I put some velvet on the cover, imagining that would be nice for this person to feel when they pick my book up off the shelf.  I do wonder, though, if anyone will pick it up.  I mean, they have an awful lot of books there!  

It's enough, though, for me, to imagine it there, waiting, for someone's hands.