1 hour
Minnehaha Off Leash Dog Park
60 degrees
A walk with Delia and FWA at the dog park. So wonderful! At some point during the walk I thought about how I’m going to remember these walks. I used to love walking and talking with my mom in the woods. Now I get to do it with Delia and FWA. Today we talked more about One Piece, both the anime and live-action version. FWA convinced Scott and I to watch it and we’re both really enjoying it. We’ve swapped out Love Boat and Little House on the Prairie for One Piece and the survival show, Alone.
The floodplain forest in early spring looks like a tree graveyard. There are dead trees in varying levels of decay everywhere. Dead trees leaning on living trees. Branchless trunks. Giant trees on their sides, some with their nest of roots exposed, others with most of their bark stripped, gleaming white. FWA and I talked about what it will look and feel like once the living trees have leaves again. We agreed that we will like it less because it will feel too hemmed in.
This feeling of being hemmed in, and less free, led to a discussion of freedom. FWA mentioned freedom from and freedom to and I tried (not quite successfully) to recall my PhD advisor’s class on different types of freedom: negative freedom (freedom from), positive freedom (freedom to) and a freedom related to social welfare — what is this third freedom called? I’ll have to look it up in her book tomorrow.
walk: 2+ miles
to Arbeiter
73 degrees
I had to pick up 2 books at the library (more on that tomorrow), so Scott and I decided to walk to the library and then over to Arbeiter. Since I’m taking a break from alcohol, I tried their NA beer, which was really good. In my 20s, I was incredulous that anyone would drink a non-alcoholic beer — why bother? But now, in my 50s, I’m more open-minded. I suppose the NA beers have gotten better since then, so it’s easier to be open-minded.
holes
I have decided that my Holes series has reached the status of obsession, which is exciting and fun and uncomfortable as I wonder if it’s all too much. I think the discomfort is good for me; I’ve been trying to not be too much for too long.
This morning, I finished drawing the Amsler grid over the mapped poem in Holes 1. I don’t like it drawn on; with my bad vision, it is too sloppy. A new thought, which is really an old thought that keeps returning: create a grid with string or thin yarn and put it over the mapped poem. Make a frame out of cardboard with notches for the string, like I did in elementary art class — what are those called? In addition to that grid, add string lines linking the words and making the poem. Use the string grid to attach these extra strings, or pins or __ ?
The center of an Amsler Grid has a dot; it’s the dot you focus on you look at the lines. As I was drawing my grid’s dot onto the poem, I realized that it (the dot) could be the reason why I’m using circles to encase my words. Of course, I am also using them because they are easy for me to trace. I like the idea of that center dot, which I can sometimes see and sometimes can’t, as haunting my reading and the words.
Yesterday, talking to Scott about this project I said, with my bad vision and lack of drawing/design skills, I have no business trying to make these poems and yet, I can’t stop myself. When I first started writing poetry, I had no business doing that either, and I kept going because I loved it.
Put that last thought beside another conversation I had with Scott a few days earlier. I was asking him what he thought about some lines I had drawn — do they look okay? do they make sense? He said something like, why aren’t you trusting yourself? You don’t need me to tell you whether they work or not.
There are some things I do with confidence and without consulting others — swimming, my running/writing practice. And there are many other things I don’t. Perhaps the ratio between not consulting/consulting is out of balance. I need to trust/rely on myself a bit more. A flash: it seems important to figure out this Hole project on my own. To create it without the help of others. If, because of my bad vision, I can’t execute some part of my plan with these Holes, then I need to figure out a new way to do whatever I’m trying to do.
A cardboard loom?! I searched, “weaving elementary craft weaving cardboard” and I found this YouTube video, Basic Weaving on a cardboard loom. I think that is what I was thinking about!
I hadn’t thought of it was a loom, although it makes sense — the lines on the amsler grid are the warp and the weft. I love this idea of connecting it to weaving and looms and my mom, the fiber artist! In the video, the instructor uses a full piece of cardboard, but I’m thinking of using just a frame instead.