If I ever was so inclined, and could bear the indulgence of the expense, I could easily find enough photographs to make a show, about almost anything.

Maybe next year.

Sometimes I wonder what the point of all this is.

The blogging, in particular, and just everything, in general.

Today's not one of those days though, thank goodness.



I don't imagine that's because I've discovered any sort of mysterious clue to the heart of the universe, if one exists, if the universe exists, and it's not all some figment of the collective imagination. I expect it's more along the lines of a kind of relaxation into the understanding that mystery not only defies understanding, but laughs at the effrontery of it. I like to imagine the laugh as a kindly one, firm but not malicious in any sort of way. Indifferent, perhaps, to the confusion of the ones debating point and pointlessness and the many variations of variations of possibility.

No I don't understand any of that. But I've been reading Deleuze and Guattari again. So I'm a little confused, and prone to using many words and comprehending none of them.

Well. I say reading. But really what I mean is that I open the book and stare at the letters and sometimes I catch a glimpse of the shadow of an idea. And then I look again, and no, it's all gibberish, like it's written in languages I can't even begin to hope to half-understand. I don't know why I torment myself this way; sometimes I read things that hurt, they're so intricate and beyond me. But it's soothing in an odd way. The words aren't much different than the bamboo that held me up that afternoon. Uncomfortable, as long as you resist the boldness of trusting something you know may very well bend and break and let you fall.

Another old drawing. I was in the "Sad-Eyed Queens & Virgins" phase, apparently.

I blame it on the time spent reading the Lives of the Saints in grade five library period. When I went back to my old school many years later I found a book in the library with my name there, in my girl-handwriting, on the library card.


Then the Andrew Lang fairy tale books started, all the colours (even the secondary ones) and tales from faraway and exotic places, but all of them pretty much boiled down to one thing and that was love. The fear of never finding it, of finding it and losing it, and having to bear that loss through all the rest of the long days after, and all those mornings of waking up and picking up the grief again.

So Adam and Eve were sitting around the table one night playing dice and Adam says to Eve,

or Eve to Adam, or Adam to Steve; it depends who's telling the story on this particular night, and what brand of snake oil is being offered for sale, but in any case some someone says to some other someone else:

"What's that over there, sliding through the tall grass?"

And then the someone being asked looks away, and says, "Oh yes, that. I thought I told you about that, didn't I tell you about that?" and then he or she smiles and asks if the someone asking about the snake would like to try a piece of pie.

I don't know how the world was made. But I have theories about all sorts of things.

It's one of those days when I think I should get something really productive done.

But I don't suppose it's necessary, really. It occurred to me the other day as I was raking the grass that it's the raking, and not the temporary pattern the rake leaves, that's important. And maybe the raking's not all that important either.

In any case, I'm kind of excited today because I'm going to submit an application to an upcoming art show. And even if I don't get to show anything, or I do and it isn't a wild success, or it is and I can buy all the gravel and drainage rock and bags of fast-setting concrete my heart desires, it's not any of that that's the happiness. The happiness is the purpose, and the sense of motion, wherever it might take me.

At the moment, the motion is taking me to the shed, and then the garden, and then the garage. Laundry's piling up, and I've got thinking to do. Laundry's great for that.

I'm sure the raccoons got most of the fish, but where did the little slice of wood go?

I can't imagine a raccoon tucking it under an arm and wandering off with it.

In any case, there are maybe four, maybe five fish left. I hope they enjoyed their freedom before they became a snack for someone. What else might have gotten them, I wonder? Do frogs eat little fish? I don't think so, but then again I don't know much about frogs.

Netting, maybe. We'll see.

Fifteen or sixteen went in; most days we can see ten.

But they seem to be happy enough, the kids in the neighborhood love having fish in the creek (such lucky kids, to have a creek in their childhood) and although we might have provided a few treats for the raccoons (where are those other five or six fish?) it seems to have been a good idea, or at least an entertaining and relatively inexpensive one. I imagine it's got to be better than being in a brightly lit fishtank at Wal-mart, with kids tapping constantly on the glass with their smudgy little fingers.