Enjoyment at random

Going over my writing from the past couple of weeks, I’m struck by how serious I’ve been. Early spring seems to do this—the last rain soaked days of quiet gray on brown silhouettes of twigs and trees before the riot of color hits. Then the blossoms arrive, heady, erotic, unreasonably beautiful, and the whole world goes a little nuts basking in all the loveliness of it.

I’m feeling inklings of that today. The maples are all flirty with little red catkin blossoms, and the magnolias (one of my favorite flowers) are blooming everywhere. And all day I felt kind of haphazard, but in a good way. Carefree, non sequitur, goofy. Things are strewn about everywhere, the house is a mess, and Bean was off schedule all day, but for some reason I haven't minded. Instead I painted, and wrote a list of ten random things that strike my fancy.

*** 1) I love accordion music. I love how it’s its own little orchestra, how I am immediately transported to cobble stone streets in Europe, with high stone buildings and fountains and people eating in outdoor cafes. If I could suddenly acquire the ability to play any instrument, I’d pick this one: comical, romantic, with a gypsy soul.

2) I have the hankering this week to look at art by Gorgia O’Keefe. Again, this must be a spring thing. Her flowers. Surely you have seen them.

3) I just remembered how much I loved reading Jitterbug Perfume, by Tom Robbins when I was in high school. He writes in such a wild, heady, ridiculous, over-zealous, over-educated, over-the top way that I dig, sometimes. When I read it then, it was at the suggestion of my first serious boyfriend and we were all loopy for each other. Sappy, yes. But it really IS a great love story.

4) I’ve had time to mull over the changes coming up (re: going back to work,) and it seems okay to me now. Exciting even. This is what I’m like: it takes me a day or two to warm to an idea, and then I’m all game.

5) I’m over my chai tea obsession that lasted me through the many months of cold winter. Now I’m in love with iced, sweetened green tea.

6) I’m planning on buying bagfulls of wild flower seeds this weekend, and scattering on the hillside below our house. I won’t have time this year to plant a real garden, but it will be fun to see what comes up from the handfuls I toss about.

7) The Vanity Fair Green Issue is my bathroom reading this month.

8) I am daydreaming about my future studio. I can hardly fathom what it will be like not to be doing paintings on the dining room table. I’m looking at paint samples, picture hangers, and storage options. Pure heaven.

9) I’ve started listening to NPR’s jazz profiles. I could do this all day. Like higher math, jazz is something I find utterly mind-blowing.

10) We had a picnic tonight in the new house, in the room that will be my studio. Indian take out: chicken curry, aloo ghobi, naan with coconut, lassi, mango chutney, raita. Bean sat on the floor with us and fed me spoonful after spoonful of rice, and then ran circles around us, his face smudged yellow from the curry.

Your turn: ten random foot loose & fancy free things.