Saturday, June 8, 2013

LIFELINES



Day-For-Night
A film term describing using nights instead of days to shoot film  It's often done in big cities where traffic would prohibit shooting in the daytime.  I mention this because I've slipped in to that mode and it's a lot like sliding  on molasses, or sliding into oblivion, open palmed, lifeline on the line.

Here's How
One night, I don't sleep through the night as  hoped.   Once up, I stay up till past dawn, stagger awhile then set the alarm for a few hours forward, get up again, stagger more, unable to manage consciousness, return to bed, eventually missing the whole day. even sundown.  That night becomes a pattern set to repeat.

I fill the hours with reading books, emails, blogs and face book, with writing stories, poems and letters, with research, dyeing fabric, artwork, or sewing projects.  I wear earphones to listen to music or watch video, and am generally quite quiet.  My young neighbors have no idea about the active life of the old woman going on so close to them.
 A Failed Dye Project
plain white cotton strip pre-soaked in soy milk
 spent Iris laid out upon it
folded over with more spent
flowers in between each layer
  till it is a small package
pounded with a stone,
laid into a heated solution of vinegar and water 
 weighted with a stone, put aside for a week,
then dried out, and flowers removed
  Results, pale tan with a few marks, no color or flower impressions.  I don't have India's book, so, really I was just goofing off, but Deanna soon set me straight, so when more garden flowers pop out, I'll try again, and this time I won't leave the flowers in it, or soak it. I'll do it right like flower pounding ought be done!

Saturday Already
(click on the arrow in the white sound bar below) 
Rain is due to clear by afternoon, I plan to plant three geraniums rescued from the local Gristede's market before the storm
.  I have an urgent need of red in the garden

I Must Confide
I've been very upset, and somewhat inspired by the news out of Turkey, where a friend and neighbor happens to be with his art students.  He sent this lovely video
"It All Started With A Tree"




4 comments:

deanna7trees said...

we learn so much from just experimenting and the element of surprise is what i love. early morning is my favorite time of day. wishing you sleep-full nights. i force myself to stay in bed through the night. i eventually fall back to sleep.

grace Forrest~Maestas said...

i was just going to ask that. as
deanna put it, force self, but
i have gotten into that habit...
if i wake, i just go back and
lay there. reminds me of how
we tell our little kids who wake
in the middle of the night and
wonder what to begin DOING...we
say just go back to bed. "I not
sleepy". ok. just go lay there.

it works. in such a surprisingly
little time, really, sleep comes.
but that would be if you Want that.
Maybe you really don't? Maybe
there is something Useful about
the Drifting in the Dark??????

Ms. said...

good advice ladies--but as you might know my normal during the bulk of my working life was active afternoons to evenings--theater performances--nights--ll years running an audio visual shop 2-10:39...and after work started at ll or 12 midnight. My days now, I always wake at 5AM no matter when I've gone to bed, and love those quiet hours. Besides, this city is almost never either quiet or dark. My best happiness is to have both ends--very early and then later to late with a long nap in the middle. But when I'm in MA, I revert within a day to early up and early bed. The syndrome I refer to here is unusual and went on for days, partially contributed to with rain and gloom. As for just lying there, well, I still feel it's better to get up and do things.

Sylvia said...

I'm intrigued as to what you were making with the fabric and the flowers and the soy milk. What it was meant to be...