"Filling the Well"

Nightlight
Originally uploaded by suzipaw

I believe it was Julia Cameron (not Julia Margaret Cameron) who wrote, essentially, that output needs input. Or, in other words, robust inspiration could contribute to better creativity.

So this weekend I tried to fill my well, as JC advises:

Saturday morning: Glass fusing class, the fastest three hours I think I've spent in my life. One minute it’s 10:40 a.m., the next it's 12:40 p.m. and time to pack up the translucent shards. I have many, many more ideas. This photo above may be a nightlight. If it doesn't explode in the kiln or something.

(I was having the perfect day there, for a moment, but speaking of exploding…As I leave the parking lot after class, "Funky Town" comes on, my favorite pick-me-up ever. Life is too good…too good. As I prepare to cross an intersection, a Volvo (you people are supposed to be safe!) starts to make a left turn in front of me. I slow and honk and he stops, T-bone averted. But the pedestrian on the corner, disturbed in her cell phone conversation by the mighty cry of the Monster Mobile, screams, "What are you honking at BITCH?" I hear her because my windows are down to let Funky Town shower the world with love, and I don't acknowledge her because I'm totally freaked by the near-accident, but my mood is ruined and of course the next half-hour of errands is spent in Walter Middyish fantasies of spiking that woman's phone off the curb or holding it hostage until she apologizes or doing her some serious bodily harm…I fear I will never be able to be the Dalai Lama's friend…)

Saturday afternoon: Packing for a Pointy Pals sleepover, a nap. Holy canoli, that never happens. Fiber-rich dinner with M.

Saturday evening: A trip to Frank Lloyd Wright's Marin Civic Center with the PPs plus members of Julia's book group to see and hear Anne Lamott and Elizabeth Gilbert. One new acquaintance makes a comment about how she'd like to purvey my felted items in the gift store she's opening soon. I don't take it seriously, but still I am cheered and honored. The writerly conversation is most excellent, the audience demographic predictable (women between the ages of 30 and 65--maybe 50 men in the sold-out 3000-seat auditorium) and Julia talks us into staying for author autographs and a photo.
Saturday night: The PPs adjourn to Julia's ancestral abode, a fabulous late-'60s pad perched on a hillside in picturesque Kentfield. Her mom is a wonderful fiber artist, crafting baskets of garden hoses, day-glo zipties, torn and painted canvas, her father's clothing after he passed away, plastic take-out containers, and one of my favorites, zippers:
Sunday morning: Fabulous breakfast before the brunch crowd at Half Day Café, perusal of the goods of a gourmet local grocery, then back to the house for writing time. I'm working on something, no idea how it will turn out. Rebecca and I had dared each other to submit to A Prairie Home Companion's sonnet contest while waiting to use the restroom in the Civic Center the night before, so I work on that for a while too.

Sunday afternoon: Restless, I depart. Stop at a mall on the way home to try to purchase the newest piece from the Eva Zeisel line, only to discover Crate & Barrel has fled this particular mall. Pursuit will continue in a couple of weeks when I'm in the City for a conference. I return home, squish bugs on the roses, walk the dog with M.

Sunday evening: A nice dinner with M. We watch Schultze Gets the Blues, which I recommend, if for nothing than for the pace, the salt lamps, the single camera shots, and the loving portraits of Cajuns.

And then, well, today was Monday. Two days sans laptop is pretty weird for me.

*****

Law School countdown:
One more class meeting
Two more finals
One graduation
One performance exam seminar
One Bar review course
One Bar exam
One excruciating waiting period for results

The sum of four years of law school

How did we get here?