Today was spent working on the 2022 calendar. Every calendar I have made has a title that has personal meaning for me. The first, 2018, was titled One Good Year. This sprang from my desire to have one year where no one died. The previous years so many people died. My husband, my brothers, my […]
Persistence of Vision Read More »
Winter is in the air. The temperatures are not yet cold, a little above zero. But you can taste what’s coming, and now that we lose the sun, temperatures get lower at night. We have had frost. Today I was walking along the river, and I saw ice. I scrambled out into the river bed to look.
I was in Seattle when corona broke out. My plan was to stay for a month, visit friends and family, and sell my condo. When I left Svalbard for Seattle there was merely a whisper of this new disease in China, and that people in Italy were ill. Two weeks later everything changed. Two weeks
Drift Ice: Loss and Change Read More »
When traveling, given a choice between a multi lane highway, and a mysterious single lane road, I will take the single land road every time. This is the philosophy by which Kij and I travel. Asphalt or gravel? Gravel. Gravel or dirt? Dirt. Granted we have ended up in the middle of nowhere Iceland, having
Cave People Outside Laugarvatn, Iceland Read More »
We have one day left in Iceland. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking while we drove the ring road about what I want the shape of my life to be. Ever since walking out from under the shadow of grief I’ve been in flux, knowing I want -something- but not knowing exactly what. Being
Thoughts from Reykjavik Read More »
My time in Longyearbyen is a little more than half over, and a month now seems way too short a time to stay here. I should have opted for two months, but I did not. In two weeks I have watched the change from 24 hours of daylight to 13 hours of daylight – 11
As a reward for finishing my first painting in Longyearbyen I gave myself a day off and took a tour of Pyramiden, an abandoned Soviet-era mining town. It also included a brief stop by a glacier, and a trip into a small bay. We started out from Longyearbyen, then traveled out of Advenfjorden into Isfjorden
If Stones Could Speak Read More »
Today, thanks to a question from a friend, I did the research to discover that I am in fact drinking glacial meltwater when I drink from the tap. That’s… amazing. Astonishing. It means ice for drinks – 10,000 year old glacial meltwater. When I wash my face, 10,000 year old glacial meltwater. When I flush
A Place of Greater Happiness Read More »
My life is made of impossible things. I left Seattle on Tuesday, August 28. Today is September 2. In that time, so much has happened. I’ve been in two countries, three if you count Svalbard as a separate country, and Norway does even though it owns it. I’ve been asked out on a date by
Made of Impossible Things Read More »
Today I did one of the most important things I wanted to do before leaving Seattle. I visited the Tsubaki Grand Shrine to ask for courage, focus, and creative inspiration at the shrine of Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto. I feel a special closeness to the Fearless One, patron of the arts, among many other things. I love the
Even an Ant’s Prayer Reaches Heaven Read More »