Easter Sunday at Bob's

I admit it: I skipped out on Easter at grandma's in a futile attempt to catch up with my life. Mind you, I will probably never actually accomplish this feat, but it felt good to enjoy a relatively nonobligatory day and, for that, I do not feel guilty. Actually, the gravity of Easter didn't really hit me until V. and I attempted to go grocery shopping only to find that NOTHING was open! I suppose that makes me a bad Catholic, doesn't it? Hmmph. Luckily, the Trader Joe Pagans were open and so we didn't starve.

I spent much of the day working on a portrait of a sweet blog-dog named Adeline. I love that name and, oddly enough, have fallen in love with the dog as well. Never mind that I've never even met her. Her sweet eyes have been looking up at me for days (from the photograph and then the canvas) and now and I can't help it--my heart has been swallowed whole. I've also been working on a portrait of another blog-dog named Trixie. Trixie has unfortunately passed on but, even so, her spirit is alive and well. I can feel it in the little smile she puts on my face whenever I work on her portrait. She looks at me with these big, joyful, expectant eyes and I imagine her little body nearly quivering with expectation. I feel honored to be painting both of these beautiful beings and can only hope that the end result of both will do justice to the love barely containable in a 16" x 16" canvas.

Afterwards, I headed down to Bob's for a cup of coffee, where I found more bad Catholics (yay!)...and took a photo of myself with my webcam for unknown reasons (see above). I brought with me 2 large bags of books and my laptop with the intention of editing an essay and writing the Works Cited page for my thesis. For some reason, I felt the need to get out of my usual space and spread out in order to accomplish this not-so-small task. My thesis is an interesting oddity to me now that I've finished writing it. It is difficult for me to encounter. I realize that "encounter" is a strange word to use within this context, but that is what it feels like: an encounter. It feels as though it is an actual encounter with myself, a meeting of myself--that is, a self that I once was in the past--a self that I once knew well and, like an old friend, will always understand better than anyone else.

From the stack of books I brought with me, there is one book in particular that still intrigues me the most, a book that I used as a resource in the writing of my thesis: Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives by Louise DeSalvo. There are times that I feel like I am nearly leaping out of my skin with excitement and curiosity. There are so many things I want to do and see and create and understand. There will never be an end to this learning. There will never be an end to this intense interest in the layers of meaning and connectedness that create my life and that life creates.

Over and over I find myself struggling with the issue of time. Always, I'm looking for more. Never, do I have enough. The feeling is intense: this love I feel for life. Sometimes I feel like I could live forever--and, still, it would not be enough.

These days, my life is in the middle of a transformation. I often find myself in a storm somewhere between holding back and pushing forward. It is interesting and complicated, painful and wonderful, all at the same time. Sometimes I feel like, if I open my mouth, I might just burst into flames or song. Sometimes (often) I wonder what would happen if I didn't contain myself. And the thought feels dangerous. Amazingly, devilishly, dangerous.

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