A verbis a verbera/acta non verba

Achill Island
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

My living room is really quite a blackhole: cluttered with half-opened art supplies, empty glasses lined with dried red wine and root beer, books in stacks, a dead christmas tree, a trying-to-grow pot of paperwhites and me. My taxes have been e-filed. My grad school applications have been sent. I am wearing the new fleece. I worked three days and then a night shift. I saw Casanova and had tom yung koong. I ate a macrobiotic dinner last night with Karen Ma. I wash dishes and have baths. I am more than midway through book two of the Patrick O'Brien books. I realize every day that I have some very high quality friends and other very good half-friends, meaning they are anywhere from one quarter- to one half-good at actually being my friend. This quality issue has nothing to do with frequency of contact but rather other factors. There are those and then there are people we might not talk to in ten years (Karen Ma) and then when we see them we are home again, easy peasy. I worry every day that my very good friends are floating away from me on the tide of our own mutual negligence when it comes to keeping tabs. I bought all these art supplies in an attempt to pull them back against that tide by sending them little thank you notes expressing how much I value them. When I have tried to sit and make something, I accomplish little.
This weekend someone asked me what my bedroom looked like and I said it's my bed and nothing else, and this is true (Eric said this was very Leonard Cohen-y). Some of you may have known me for my previous rooms and my tendency to actually adorn them with remnants and signifiers of my life, and I liked that. I can still do that but it seems that now I am grown, whatever that means. Now I am without the frequent lightning strike of inspiration and
I wonder how much of this is the fault of my work or other things. For example, the other day I spent two hours online researching the approximate cost of a windbeaten cottage on the northwest coast of Ireland where I might one day retreat during winters (for the storms) to write. And yet I could have spent those two hours writing right here, right now and then I wouldnt think so little of myself. Problem solved! Actions not words.

Oh but you say, come now, you sound perfectly depressed, nurse!

I don't really think I am. I think I am tired and that I need to work more diligently at my calligraphy (I bought a kit with the other stuff at the art store) and try to keep my house uncluttered so I can find an available work space when I feel a lightning strike coming on.

That, and more wine, less talk.