Stop and Smell the French Elephants

Whenever we reach this page in "Babar's Family," I involuntarily pause. "Mommy, talk!" Sonja prods, but the poetry in this depiction of leisure pulls at my heart. The entire book is comprised of little vignettes of familial harmony and joie de vivre, but this description is so vivid -- a sensual, physical and emotional portrait of the experience of living in a moment. "Sometimes Babar and Celeste go sailing," it says. "They love to glide silently over the cool water, pushed by the wind." Of course they do! What I wouldn't give for an experience like that! But in fact, my life is full of these moments -- they just need to be recognized. Because my view of life right now can be summed up by this little painting I made yesterday ("SONJA UP CLOSE"), I'm feeling pretty incapable of seeing past this admittedly adorable obstruction to the rest of the world. So that's my current project, and it might cause me to look a bit silly... for example, when I'm running and something catches my eye, I'm now inclined to go right over and, say, run my hands through the attractively sideways-blown tall grass, and then maybe even tear some off to smell before trotting back onto the road.

Back In the Saddle?

I'm tentatively reclaiming this blog after not posting for 7 months since I might be about to live up to it's title again. No, not another baby! I might actually take a DJ gig. My last stint behind the tables was in 11/07; I was 7 months pregnant and reaching that extra distance around my belly to get at the decks was uncomfortable, surreal, fun and funny. Had I known then that the luxury of immersing myself for endless hours in the process of constructing a set would be so throroughly taken from me, I would have relished it so much more. Sonja is 25 months old, and even now I can hardly imagine how I would find the time and the concentration to do this... Will they really let a newly forty-year-old mommy spin house music? I shamefully remember playing a rave in Louisville when I had just turned 30; I felt like such an ancient sage, savoring the shocked "no waaaaay!" I would get when revealing my age to the young candy-ravers. But just recently there was that actual old person in England, a 69-year old grandmother, who is now blowing up as a DJ in Europe after learning about electronic dance music from her grandson. I think maybe she will be my new power animal.

Here are two of my paintings, one from 1997 and one from 2010. It is hard for me to reconcile these two lives.