'A Walk in a Dream' (Matted Photo Print of Completed Work)

An 8" X 10" Photo Print of "A Walk in a Dream" is Available for sale 

At my Etsy shop: Sunflower Point of View.  This high resolution photo print is framed in a  high quality 11" X 14" black mat.  

In the Dark

I woke up last night, so restless I knew I was suffocating.  Before my dramatic panic could gain a good foot hold I realized that in my sleep I had smashed my face into a feather pillow and was literally a little short on air. Now chuckling at myself, I rolled over, waking myself up all the way.  I quietly got up before I could toss and turn my darling awake too and headed downstairs.

Char excitedly jumped into my lap as I sat on the couch.  We played 'chase the string' (which is way more awesome in the muted light of 4 am than ever before known.) This cheered me up for a bit but as he settled on my chest for a cuddle my thoughts again soured...

Age is marching on my face.  I have gained ELEVEN frigging pounds in the last three months. Every day, I woefully eat my Greek yogurt/ raspberry breakfast and then later munch down my loaded veggie salad, snacking only on almonds, hard boiled eggs and bell peppers... while I resentfully glare at skinny coworkers snacking on cream cheesed bagels and raspberry muffins.

I get to work in the dark.  I stare at my computer screen, checking internet references against word docs, without access to windows.   I leave work in the dark. I get home and make dinner.  I sit in a dark living room and stare at a TV, the blood in my ears sounding thick and heavy.  My art sits silently collecting dust in the company of many double stacked unread books. We stay up late.  I sleep badly.  I get up in the dark.

My special kind of hell is a regular happy world for others.  I am confused why I don't seem to adapt. I have struggled into this ill fitting sweater every day for years now.  Years and years.  Everyone around me seems to be just fine with the hours, with the commute, the grey walls, shared lunches in windowless break rooms and dress pants. Why am I not just fine too? Why am I slamming my inner fists against the walls?

I went outside yesterday, during the day.  Watery December sunlight kissed my face for the first time in three days and just for a moment I felt lighter. So today, as I got to work in the dark, I carried with me my tennis shoes. At 9 am, an hour and a half in, I traded my heels for them and walked around outside for ten blissful shivering minutes. 

They Leave

"They Leave"

18" X 24" X 1.5"

Free Flight: Paragliding and Hanggliding

Please Watch and Share: Gliders vs. Miners

The mining company purchased the property behind the houses in the 1990's when there were already houses.  This mining company will devastate the neighborhood and quality of life if they are allowed to mine "Phase 2".

I find it interesting that one neighbor cannot change his adjoining property (house and land) in a manner that negatively impacts mine without at least a massive effort to prove the need and to then hear opposing views. How can a different neighbor be completely exempted when their intended use of the property includes the words "total disturbance"?

Please sign the petition https://www.change.org/p/salt-lake-county-government-save-steep-mountain

Dear Friend - Part 2

Dear Friend,

Just over a week ago, I laid on the warm grass in the back yard, idly playing with your fur around your shoulders.  You were 'giving up' the last couple of days. You who love to run up and down the mountains, chase squirrels and tennis balls, swim in creeks, rivers and oceans, explore parks, camping and crazy long road trips (California, Wyoming, Utah and more)... 

Your last few pleasures are becoming impossible... getting in and out of the car, walks in the neighborhood, coming upstairs to bed.  This was a good day but as I watched you watch a bird in tree, the sunlight in the grass-  I knew I was watching you let go and it was time to ask myself to also let you go. 

I last wrote to you in April (http://acarnamedkatie.blogspot.com/2014/04/dear-friend.html). I am writing to you, again here on the internet, not for you but for other humans.  I hope they read this and know that to be in balance with life, we need balance with the world we are born in.  Animals were once a common part of our time on this planet. Now they are often not and we are losing something important as we lose this connection.  

Animals teach us lessons in real friendship. For all our logic and thumbs, we share the same longing for family, safety, adventure and play.  Dumb in our world, they are unable to articulate their feelings and needs with our words.  To truly bond with an animal, we learn to listen, hear, see and feel differently than we are taught to in our human interactions and this brings us into focus with our own natures. 

We humans tend to live in the past, regretting and second guessing what is done.  We tend to live in the future, worrying and planning for what we cannot predict or change. Animals live right now and living with them, we are brought back to the present.

And to you dear friend; It is all right that I am grieving for you. Ohhhh the lessons I have been privileged to learn because of you!  You know all my looks and I know yours.  I know your moods, your inclinations, your signals and you know mine. You accepted me and I learned to accept you. I have hated watching you become limited with age, I am sympathetic to your depression and frustration. I miss you on every run, walk, every excursion of shared "grocery store/ oil change/ park" we had together!

You have been my child, my sister, my friend.

And I promise, because I value you and our friendship, that I am letting you go too.  In tribute to our friendship I will not ask you to keep you going anymore.  I, and my best friend, we will let you go in the next few days, we will pick a day that is beautiful and we will let you go with peace and dignity.

  

Coffee with Sunday Morning (Original Art)

'Coffee with Sunday Morning'
***SOLD*** (Details: 4" X 12" X .75" permanently mounted to a 8" X 10" X .75", Mix of Medias include Acrylic, Ink, Oil Pastels, Watercolor)

A Taste

I am eager for a taste of this tricky evening.  I watch the wings that sink out. I watch the wings that hold on. I watch the C wings take the last bench.  I see that flat, yet tight turns, determine the fate of those that hang on.  Tips that wobble, from brakes pulled too much or too little, will miss the narrow thermals and rocky rolling lift line.  I watch and watch, learning, absorbing yet hesitating. 

This is some of my favorite air.  It may look crowded for a few minutes but I know I will have most of the ridge to myself if I hold out because most will sink or land out.

I am eager for a taste but I pause as I watch launch.  Many of the pilots, including those who possess kiting skills that far exceed my own, are struggling.  Light easterly cross wind mixes with strong tapered thermals in densely cool air causing wings to rapidly switch from surging forward to buckling in; all while trying to also to rock them into the gullies. 

Once I am past launch, the air will engulf me in the moment.  I know I will be present, 100% present in each instant.  It is a drug for me.  I don’t care about the last course; I don’t care about the bench.  I want the thrill of listening to my wing, of staring fiercely at the stiff sage for flickering foliage, of guessing which ridge will have the tiniest bit more movement as I try to correctly time each sink and lift cycle.

Oh I am eager for a taste!   Again, I pull my wing up but just as quickly I set it back down.  Again the light sharp feather of memory teases my neck.  I have been ‘gullied’.  The result was only a few nasty scratches and a twisted ankle but I have not forgotten it could have been more. I turn around to watch another pilot get picked up, sat down and snarled into a knot.

I look around for an instructor who has before helped me this year on a similar evening but they aren't here. Drat.  I turn back and as I watch I can see the gusts are abating.  It is going to continue to be cross and uneven but it is smoother.  I roll my shoulders, take a deep breath, decide and ask someone else to assist me; to ask them help me be safe and coach my launch.

And they do, while telling me I should take a pass on this tricky air…. J  With their much appreciated verbal only guidance, I have a safe launch and I have my taste.

Oh such wonderful air; the best kind, the teaching kind, the kind that keeps me hyper alert.  I grinned as I missed the minuscule thermal at the gazebo and I carefully tapped my brakes into a flat turn to catch it again, relying on weight shift.  I laughed as I climbed back up to ridge level; I dropped my inside hip, just touching my outside brake to level out my wing’s porpoise effect caused by flying close to the gullies and ridges.  I repeat this movement, searching the ridge for all of the steps.

A strong thermal lifts me up quickly and I turn into it, ‘parked’ for a moment until I feel it roll over and past and down I sink again.  The rowdiest air on an easterly evening seems to always towards the end so I use the lower landing zone to as a visual marker to not go past.

I dance in this silly, laughing turbulent air delivered by a wind that challenges me to be present, to be in every instant, to never let my attention stray and to never give up.  For thirty four minutes I sink, I soar; I live in each heart beat until I hear her sigh that she is done with our play.   I turn in my last chance to be on top, land on the grass and laugh at myself.