I was seeing double this morning.
After I finish a new design I trace it onto paper — all notched up to go around the squares of the canvas — so that I have a pattern to make more. After the brainwork (which I do love) of figuring out design and colours I often enjoy this stage where I can sit back and take a breath, not have to think too hard, but still feel virtuous in getting work done.
We’re having a spectacular week of weather here on the west coast, and I want to make sure it’s quite clear that I’m not complaining but at the same time my body is shaking it’s head and trying to remember what to do when it’s hot and dry outside.
And what do I wear? And should we have a salad for dinner?
(As I write I can hear a lawnmower on what must be the first cut of the year. Last night the doors to the balcony were open and kids’ voices drifted up and through. That’s not actually so common here, on the side of this mountain where grassy backyards are rare and calf muscles big.)
Those sparkles on the water throw me off a little. When it truly is summer — as in swimming at the beach summer — when the water sparkles like that I know it’s time to get down there. I don’t know if it’s a temperature thing, or something to do with where the sun is in the sky, but the sparkles usually call up to me, and say it’s a day when swimming down there must not be missed! Today since it’s still just the very very beginning of April they might just be trying to set me up.
I snuck down to my beach the other afternoon, the first time since September, and it was so good to breathe in that sea air and stretch out with a book on the rock.
Although even down there there were lineups. These guys. Why are they rushing?
But with this sudden dip into summer it was especially nice to take my tracing down to the kitchen table this morning and have a change of scenery. Even ordinary things look pretty in sudden summer light, and as I worked the dreaded blue of the morning was chased away by the sun.
But that awkward moment when you find out a colour is stalking you:
That lantern called out to me at IKEA last month, and I thought it would be nice to have around. A new colour. So this morning I snort laughed when I noticed with my ‘winter is gone’ eyes that it matches that hunk of pottery and some dots on my shell bowl, that fuzzy plant, my plates (should have seen that one), and the border I had just used on a new dozens design. And they were all sitting within a few feet of each other.
Summer (sort of) magic.