Estelle and Eunice

"Estelle and Eunice" -  mixed media on reclaimed wood, 16" x 48".  Ready to hang.  Available on Artfinder.

August is upon us.  The weather grows more dramatic, the yard transforms into a steamy jungle.  The pile of dorm supplies in the spare room tells me fall transitions are coming.  A batch of newly hatched ducklings in the yard lures us outside into the sauna.  There is both a hurry up and a slow down happening simultaneously.   I want to dig my heels in.

Still reading Mark Nepo's Seven Thousand Ways to Listen.  I've been reading it off and on for over two years, and still am only halfway through.  It isn't a book you can rush.  Too many intricate thoughts, too many delicious words which demand savoring.  This week, I got stuck here: "I had grown weary from trying to sort out my lot of catastrophes, from trying to make sense of events and turns, from imagining plans and backup plans.  Out of exhaustion, I finally just opened myself to everything; not trying to draw any conclusions but to receive it all the way the mouth of a river receives all the river carries, letting it mark and groove my bottom."

There was sweet relief in these words, after an endless stream of my own plans and backup plans, more planning and endless conjecturing.  Combine this with August heat and slow water in the lake and it just beckons us to float along, letting life shape us.  And so I lift my heels out of their well-worn grooves in the ground and allow myself to drift along this week.  

This piece required a complete letting go of outcomes.  The wood is the most heavily textured and unpredictable of all the reclaimed pieces piled against the wall.  There is a sweet connection between Estelle and Eunice.  I'm going to stop while and see if I can hear their whispers.
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