Paintings Made in Baltimore

More of the art backlog from the last few years.  These paintings were created after I moved to Baltimore.  I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones I could easily extract from the stack in the art closet.  All are acrylic on gessoed heavy paper.  

Screenwriter Anita Loos

Kitchen Dancing

Water Witch

Doris

Violets

Balloons

2022 Furniture Resurrection Projects

The home I bought in 2022 was an estate sale, and came with So Much Stuff, much of which has been useful.  I have tools and nails for almost every occasion and didn't need to buy, for instance, a new lawn mower.  Some less than-beautiful-items were also left behind, many of which were tossed (the nasty white shag rug went away fast), some sold (several small tables and two southwestern chairs that were stashed in the attic), and some were restored.  Below are before, during and after shots of three such repairs.  

Potter's End Table

In the basement, I found a simple wood table, covered in dust and clay, and some knife marks, as it was likely used by a potter who at one point probably used the basement as a studio.  I still have a 1950s era kiln in the basement, and may always, since it is enormous and heavy.  Since the table (like most of the dated, but solid furniture left behind) was made of all wood, I decided to refinish it.  Twas my first refinishing attempt in quite some time. 

Before: 

During (a LOT of sanding):

After:

It came out a bit more orange than I would have like, but otherwise, I was quite pleased.  It spent a long, long time outside as polyurethane stinks for a long time, I can report.  

Coffee Table:

The coffee table had not been relegated to the basement, so it was cleaner, but had peeling layer of clearish finish, and that was about it.  I forgot to take a before photo, so in-process will have to suffice. 

During:

With the stripper on it

After sanding:

First coat of orangy stain (neighbor's cat supervising), which was followed by a darker stain to tone it down:

After: 

Porch Chairs:

The porch chairs had been left outside for a long long while, and one was split in the middle.  But some glue and several coats of exterior paint, and they've got new life and use again. 

Before:

During:

After:

Sketchbook

So on this blog, it looks like I haven't been making any art for a long, long time. 

In reality, I just haven't been posting.  

Evidence: a peek into my lumpy and sometimes awful sketchbook, largely centered on trying to draw people that look like actual people.  

Progress is uneven (some are strange, and some I clearly abandoned before they got very far) but there is progress, so I'll take it. Drawing is never going to be a strength, but I find it increasingly relaxing.  Paying attention to shape and light and detail is never a waste.  

Katherine, Women in Shakespeare series

Once again, I've been neglectful in posting, so to catch up, here is "Katherine," another in the Women in Shakespeare series.  I painted her sometime in October.  She is, ahem, not much like the movie star photo reference, but she has some personality that I enjoy.  As always, any painting is progress forward.  

Katherine
acrylic on paper

Hopper Homage

This painting started out as a quick small sketch copying Edward Hopper's Hotel Room, but when I moved on to paint a larger, simplified version, I added my own spin, inserting the window and checkered floor and shifting to a cooler toned color scheme.  It's retains Hopper's sense of isolation but has become instead more institutional, perhaps a hospital or a dorm room. Freedom exists on the other side of that window. 

The Exeter Experience
acrylic on paper
17 1/2" x 23"

St. Catherine with a Toothache

This painting was an attempt to copy a section of Caravaggio's painting Saint Catherine of Alexandria.  Sadly, in my version, she looks like she has a toothache, which is not exactly the martyring for which she is renowned.  If she indeed existed (historians debate this point, and if so, who she might be based on), she was likely beheaded in the end, as were many of the people she converted.  Caravaggio, meanwhile, caused a stir by choosing a model who was a prostitute to portray the virgin saint.  

St. Catherine
acrylic on paper
17 1/2" x 23"

No Longer a Self Portrait

A while back, I attempted a self-portrait sketch which ended up not particularly appealing on multiple levels.  Sometime in 2020, I ran across it again and opted to paint it and modify her into someone else.  She came out a wee bit odd looking too, but I like that the blue background that somehow makes her feel a bit old fashioned.  

Crafty Easter Bunny

Poor Lila is stuck with an honorary auntie who doesn't much like shopping, but does get crafty at times.  So she ends up with odd holiday treats like the mutant bunny below: 

Legless, armless bunny with
beady eyes and bow

But bunny has a tail!

Nothings says happy Easter like a
weird little basket

Assortment of 2020 Abstracts

Abstracts painted in 2020 (who knows when? 2020 was a blur):

Abstract - Map Reading
acrylic on paper
15" x 22"

Abstract - Chaotic Universe
acrylic on paper
17 1/2" x 23"

Abstract - Compass Bloom
acrylic on paper
17 1/2" x 23"

Abstract - Seasonal
acrylic on paper
17 1/2" x 23"

Abstract - Blue
acrylic on paper
17 1/2" x 23"

Abstract - Trapped Dragonfly
acrylic on paper
17 1/2" x 23"

Beatrice & Lavinia

I've been remiss in posting artwork (or anything else).  And so, without further ado, created sometime in 2020, two more paintings in the Women in Shakespeare occasional series: Beatrice and Lavinia. 

Beatrice
acrylic on paper
17 1/2" x 23"

Lavinia
acrylic on paper
17 1/2" x 23"

Miranda

It's only taken me a four years to get back to the Shakespeare series - and I'm not sure this one is done.  But it's closer anyway. Meet Miranda from The Tempest.  Composition inspired by John Waterhouse's painting.  

Miranda, acrylic on paper, 16" x 27"

New Pandemic Hobby

Too late to join the mask-making movement, I discovered an old Singer sewing machine in my aunt's garage.  A testament to the sturdiness of its construction, after dusting it off, it fired right up.  This did not solve the larger problem in that I have no idea how to use it, but I've made some minor strides by practicing making Barbie clothes.  (Yes, I spend time with a 6-year-old).  My mother (an expert sewer and maker of well-constructed, lovely Barbie clothes back in the day) would have been entertained by my efforts, I suspect.  I certainly appreciate her skills in a new way given my recent attempts.  

Fruits of my labor so far: 

The Ballgown

Made from an old pillowcase, I used a pattern I found online...and made quite a mess of it.  The top had so many seams going back and forth that it looked almost embroidered.  I was working without a model (no, I don't yet own my own Barbies), so the initial attempt needed some crucial modifications.  The 6-year-old and her mother added in straps so the top would stay up -- and also all the beads, because hey, glue guns are fun.  

The Pinwheel Skirt

This one, I didn't use a pattern, instead making it up, which worked moderately better than I would have thought.  But the waist top is still a lump of crooked tangled thread, and I likely should have hemmed the bottom all at once, rather than piece by piece before connecting them. And the seams don't lie flat because I didn't sew them twice.  And I broke a needle. There was some swearing involved. But I did figure out how to wind the bobbin and thread the machine, so progress nonetheless.  I also had a borrowed Barbie to work with so I could adjust the size appropriately.  

The Slinky Purple Faux Velvet

This was a free-for-all patternless event which worked somewhat more than I would have guessed largely because the material is an old shirt that stretches, and I was able to cut it out so that I could keep the original bottom hem (rather than my inevitably crooked lumps).  Adding in some darts meant that the dress actually stayed on.  The feather boa (fluff taken from the top of an xmas gift bag) perhaps changed the style a bit from Starlet Barbie to Hooker Barbie, but I couldn't give up the boa once I'd found it.  The 6-year-old repurposed the boa into a cat toy, which is probably for the best.  

Painting in Arizona

I visited my sister and her husband in Arizona over Thanksgiving, and had time for a sisters painting fest, which involves painting, listening to loud music, and occasionally busting into some random dance moves. Results of my work became increasingly eccentric, from a (for me) pretty decent desert-y landscape based on the view from their sun room to the weird underwater beginning of, I'm not sure...a children's book perhaps?  Ideas welcome.

Cochise, AZ
acrylic on canvas board
11 x 14

Big Fish, Little Fish
acrylic on canvas board
11 x 14

First Flamingo & New Abstract

If you live in Florida, eventually you are required to paint a flamingo.  So I did & presented it as a gift to a flamingo-loving relative.

Meanwhile, I also amused myself with some abstract fun.

Last Paintings from Class

Miami

The remaining painting classes were, happily, more personally successful.  In a small miracle, I employed perspective in a painting deliberately.  While the the figure is once again a wee bit weird, the sense of that sidewalk disappearing into the horizon works -- and I even know how to do that again; the magic of good instruction at work.

And then, oh happy day!, we had a day of just playing around with abstracts.  I'm so much more relaxed when it doesn't have to look like anything, can just be an exploration of shape and color.  Apparently, this is mildly unusual, and people who can paint objects with more realism and detail can get hung up letting things loose in abstracts.  Not me...I may not yet understand the balance in abstracts, but I do love trying.

Untitled

My thanks to Jared Peters and the Charlotte Street Arts Centre for a great class.
https://www.jaredpetersart.com/
http://www.charlottestreetarts.ca/

Painting Class

After not painting for close to a year, I'm back in a painting class.  It's a great class, although sadly, my painting remains rudimentary.  Still, I'm mildly encouraged that I am starting to see things in a painterly way again, to see the blocks of color a bit, even if I can't capture that.  And yes, I still can't draw.

Here's what we've been up to in class so far:

Class 1: Cupcakes and Apples

Yes, the cupcake is completely mutant, but trust me, icing is more confusing than you might think.  I completely ignored the ridges on the cupcake holder too because various attempts at that were hideous.  Let's just say: I'm rusty.  I was content to drown my sorrows by eating the cupcake model.

Apples, happily, are less confusing, although these are both still bizarre.  The first apple I painted in class.  The second was an attempt at home (with a different apple model, and also different paint colors).  Neither is terribly thrilling, but it got me thinking about value again.

Class 2: Portraits

My people still look like cartoons.  And I can't draw.  And the proportions of her face are wrong in both paintings, and so neither looks like the the original photo.  I tend to have all kinds of weird little dabs of color, rather than blocks of color or conversely, smooth blending of color, so it always looks a mess to me.  Twas my day to get frustrated and compare my work to the really rather gorgeous paintings other classmates were painting. I got over myself by the next class, regained my sense of humor, and got off the comparison trolley to hell, and back onto the, well, painting is fun, just enjoy. Apologies to my sister, the unwitting model.

Class 3: Landscapes

I spent most of the class working on the first landscape, and getting confused as to how to handle the detail and failing to capture, among other things, the color of the water.  But it's a pretty place (Bruce Peninsula in Ontario) in real life.

The second painting (road to Maroon Bells in Colorado) I did very quickly which is some ways worked better, as I got out of my own way.  I'd thought to make it more finished at home, but decided against it, since I'm not terribly attached to it. I like looking at beautiful landscapes in real life, and taking millions of photos, but I didn't have much of an emotional connection to these landscape paintings.  I think I need to take some time choosing not just a pretty place but also considering what I want to say about it more next time I attempt landscapes.

Heat Wave

I grew up in suburban Maryland, a mile outside of Washington, DC, a city known for the stupefying heat and humidity of its summers.  Since I was the youngest in my family, my bedroom was the last to graduate to a window air-conditioning unit.

During the day, in truly sultry weather, my sister and I would hide out in her room in the attic, which boasted the largest, loudest, most powerful air conditioner I’ve still ever seen.  A behemoth of a window unit, it took over the whole window, and was installed permanent year-round because no sane person wanted to risk lifting that monster.  In my parents’ room, meanwhile, a more ordinary window unit hummed along with vastly more energy efficiency on oppressive July nights.

In my room, an aging window fan moved the humidity around, the effect much like being the jet exhaust of an airplane.  The room stayed stubbornly hot, but the noise and wind provided distraction.  I remember nights lolling on top of the sheets watching shadows on the ceiling, sometimes with my nightgown wetted down with tap water and the idea that evaporative magic would leave me cooler, not just clammy.  I knew if I turned the blasting fan off -- and I did sometimes when the noise failed to outweigh the swirl of air -- I’d hear the summer crickets and frogs, the occasional car driving by, the rustle of wind through the crabapple tree in the backyard, perhaps a rumble of thunder to go with flashes of heat lightning if a storm lurked.  The sense floated that unlike the climate-controlled inside, I was sleeping outside, awash in the elements, that I was part of nature and velvet night, in the wild zone of secrets bestowed upon those awake while others slept. 

For the last three days, here in my adult life in Fredericton, NB, a heat wave has consumed the city, with highs reaching into the mid-90s.  Floridians (as I have been and will be again) experience this as a matter of course, but not so in the Canadian Maritimes.  As proof, I offer up that my apartment, like many in the city, does not have air conditioning.  For the past several days, I’ve closed the blinds and windows in the morning in the hopes of holding the cool captive inside through the heat of the day.  The apartment and I have shambled along by day mildly cooler and certainly darker and mustier than the great outdoors. 

It’s evening now on the last day of the wave.  The windows are open wide and still humid but finally cooling night air is drifting in. I have the ceiling fan at the 2^nd highest setting because at the highest setting it swings from its stalk and makes noises that suggest it might launch itself from its mooring.  The night and the breeze on my skin, the few sounds of a neighborhood mostly quiet, leaves me homesick for summer in my childhood bedroom, for that loud fan and the favorite pillowcase with a cartoon walrus on it, for the shelves crammed full of books and board games and stuffed animals, for the wooden dressing table from my mother’s childhood bedroom and the fish tank in the corner with the one stubborn algae eater sturdier than all the goldfish carted home from the elementary school carnival.  I am homesick for summer in the bedroom with the unquestioned, unacknowledged comfort of my mother sleeping in the next room.

In my adult life here in Canada, July 4^th marked the 5-year anniversary of my mother’s death.  I miss her every day in some little way, Mom being woven into the fabric of my every day of childhood, that is to say, the time that I was becoming a person, and so here I am, always a little frayed and unraveled without her.  I often drink my morning tea from the same blue and white ceramic mug from which she drank her coffee.  Some days, holidays and anniversaries and heat waves, remind me more of the details.  So here is what I want to tell you: once or many times – childhood memory being murky the way it is –  my mother and I sat on the screened-in porch and watched torrential rain fall in heavy sheets.  Wind pushed bursts of water through the screens turning it to mist, the storm spray and deluge offering a shared exhilaration and providing a temporary respite from the long slog of a hot summer in suburban Maryland.  

The Year of the Woman

In my last semester of my undergraduate program in 1992, I took a basic political science class, and wrote a paper on "1992: The Year of the Woman." 1992 earned its moniker when four women were elected to the United States Senate (two new to the senate; two reelected), who, when added to the existing two Senators already serving, brought the total number of female senators to six (five Democrats and one Republican).  SIX out of 100.  6% of Senate representation for roughly 50 percent of the population was lauded as "The Year of the Woman."  That was the world in which I was coming of age as a human being and a feminist.  I believed, as a woman in her 20s, that the pendulum was finally swinging our way, and in a few decades, opportunities for women would be radically different. I still remembered my confused dismay as a child at the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1979.  In 1992, I thought those kinds of roadblocks were clearing at last.

So it's been a few decades. The number of women in the U.S. Senate currently stands at 21; the House of Representatives has a similar percentage of women.  Progress has been made, but 25 years distant from my young self, what I assumed would happen in my lifetime - equal representation - feels increasingly remote, a fading wisp of smoke from a pipe dream.

Other countries boast better numbers.  Canada (my current address) does, but not spectacularly.  On the IPU's Women in Parliament list, Canada is #62 with 26.3% lower house (House of Commons) representation, and 43% in the (appointed, not elected) Senate. The U.S. squeaks into the top 100 coming in at #98 with 19.4% representation in the House of Representatives (http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm).

The top of the list, Rwanda, came as a surprise to me. In early 1990s, before the genocide of 1994, the percentage of parliamentary representation of women in Rwanda was under 15%.  As a consequence of the violence, when a million people, primarily men, were killed in a space of months and others fled the area, of the remaining population, 70% were women.  Women stepped into the open roles, and in 2003, the government passed quotas that led to the rapid changes.  (See article from 2014 here for details: http://harvardkennedyschoolreview.com/rwanda-strides-towards-gender-equality-in-government/). Rwanda is now one of only two countries whose representation is more than 50% women.

All is not rainbows in Rwanda.  There are suggestions that changes in term limits enacted in 2015 that allows President Kagame to be reelected and serve until 2035 mean that the government has cemented a devolution into a one party system (an example of one of many reasons I favor terms limits at the executive and congressional level).  Ironically, the anti-genocide laws of Rwanda are now being used as a means of squashing free speech and dissent.  (http://www.newsweek.com/2017/07/21/kagame-presidency-stability-rwanda-elections-635018.html)

To state the patently obvious: No one sane with any moral center views genocide as a preferred path for change.  No one wants a one party system (except the dictators and power-brokers themselves).  There's ample evidence worldwide throughout history that even the most warm and fuzzy, benevolent dictators seldom stay benevolent when their power is threatened.

My point in bringing up Rwanda is that all the talk about how change necessarily has to be glacially slow, and how everyone should be patient, endlessly, as we wait for the old guard of powerful men to get around to letting us gals into the clubhouse in equal numbers is, well, bullshit.  If we as a country, women and men, really wanted women to have equal voice in government, then we would make it a priority. Are quotas the way to do this, and if so, what kind?  I don't know.  Some 128 countries have some sort of quota for women in government though, so it's clearly not as outrageous an idea as some might have you think. (http://www.quotaproject.org/country.cfm?SortOrder=LastLowerPercenta).  I do believe that more rapid change can happen if we decide we want it.

For hundreds of years, men of the United States have wielded a stranglehold of power over the women of the United States, and I'm tired of it. You want to shriek about the unfairness of quotas, at the possibility of the best qualified person not getting the job, get back to me once there has been hundreds of years of equal representation and a true equality is the norm, not just a speaking point. Because I can tell you right now, the best qualified women are often not getting the nominations or the interviews, much less the job because there aren't quotas, because ingrained, institutional sexism limits them - they don't "look the part" in the minds of so many hiring managers, boardrooms and voters and politicos. If we reserve a specific space for the voice of women in government, we open a counterpoint to the many other places of power where men's voices predominate.  From the tiny percentage of women in CEO roles (http://fortune.com/2017/06/07/fortune-women-ceos/) to the pay disparities, it takes little time to note the continuation of sexism, and sometimes outright misogyny.

In 1992, I was young and naive, and I thought the better parts of humanity would prevail, that fairness would naturally lend itself to a better balance.  I thought I would see a better country a short time ahead.  In 2017, older, and much, much angrier, I realize change happens when we enact it.  Civil Rights did not wait for all the segregationists to decide they were done with Jim Crow;  people of conscience stood and protested and fought, started a national conversation; when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed, it ended the segregationists' party early.  Racism did not magically end then, and is experiencing a dank and vocal resurgence now thanks to the new U.S. president. The end of the legally-enforced conditions of separation opened space for a contact that could more easily challenge racist assumptions, providing a social contact context for change.  The more varied the faces and voices at the table, the more the next generation can see themselves in those roles.  Elected representatives who are women and/or people of color and/or other minority groups should not be exotic novelties, but instead exist in numbers that reflect the diversity of our society.  In short, representatives should be representative. 

At 48 years old, I now spend time walking around a college campus with regularity since I am attending graduate school.  It is my hope that in 25 years, when this crop of college seniors are my current age they see in the United States a country that welcomes voices from every quarter, where representation reflects truly equal opportunity. My fear is that I'm just as naive in hoping for that kind of change as I was in 1992.

You Can't Go Home Again

Simon pondering the
path ahead.  

The title of Thomas Wolfe's novel, You Can't Go Home Again, has been the refrain looping through my head over the last weeks. It's a book I have not read, know little about except its title and that the main character, a writer, has inspired ire in his hometown by writing about its inhabitants. But the phrase itself - being unable to return home, and the quest for home as a literary theme dating back to The Odyssey and before- gets me thinking. What makes a home? Is our first home the imprint on which all other attempts will be compared? Does nostalgia, loss, and the passage of time make us more or less likely to reach out for new homes? How does place define us, inspire us, imprison us?

In February, I sold my house in Florida, put most of what I possess in storage, put the rest in the backseat of my car with my cat, and started driving north. Next September, I will start a PhD program in English (Creative Writing track) at the University of New Brunswick, but until then, I have an unusual luxury of time to do a little traveling and exploring. As a single woman with virtually no commitments (for good or bad - my opinion on that fact varies depending on the day), my largest restraints lie in making sure my cat is both welcome and comfortable.

Given the (for a liberal Democrat) harrowing political times of early 2017, my first thought was to get out red-state Florida, and in fact, out of the whole country, and get at least a cursory feel for Canada, the country which will be my home for the four years of my academic program. Given that I will have ample time to explore New Brunswick and the Maritimes over those years, my plan was to head north to Toronto, a city with a well-deserved reputation of being diverse and livable. I'm writing this during my last few days in a very comfortable airbnb rental with my feline buddy snoozing on the couch next to me.

On the way here, though, in order to give both myself and my cat a break on the road, I spent a bit over a week staying just out outside of Washington, DC - the focal point of American political machinations, and also, my hometown. I grew up in Bethesda, MD, and over the years have lived in various parts of NW, NE, and SE DC, with a brief stint in Cheverly, MD, as well as two multiyear stretches in Takoma Park. Of the ten or so states in the US in which I have lived, the DC area is where I spent both the bulk of my childhood and large chunks of my adulthood.

During my recent visit, I caught up with many friends and family there. I was also near constantly reminded of other memories with other people as I drove through the city, rode the Metro, walked on paths that I'd walked over many time before, smelled the trees and the rivers and the dirt of my former home.  For me, DC was a memory minefield - I never knew what would blow up around the next corner when I was accosted by a familiar sight, sound or smell.

In some vital way, I could go home again.  The people that I've known and loved over years and decades continue to delight, inspire, and impress me. I basked in the familiar way my father told a beloved old family story. I laughed adrift in a sea of old jokes that came up when reviewing old wedding photos with a crew of dear female friends. The bride's daughter is now older (and likely wiser) than when her mother and I (her maid of honor) first met as teens. A former boss turned friend regaled me over lunch of travel adventures he had planned. Brunch with other friends acquired from one of my briefer forays into corporate America dissolved into snorting laughter but also had somber moments interspersed when reviewing difficult stories. I met another friend's crazily cute new son and witnessed some of his little boy's very first solo steps. I strolled a trail covered many times years ago with a friend who now had her son along for the hike, one who shares his mother's love of nature and dogs, despite being mildly dismayed by a soggy shoe from creekside slip. I wandered the Arboretum, the National mall and downtown taking photos and talking of art, light and very tasty ramen noodles. On my own, I wedged in visits to two museums and scrambled over the rocks on my favorite Billy Goat trail hike by the Potomac.

Some connections were missed - time was short, people were traveling, the stars don't always align. But in a short period of time, I saw a varied, lovely group of people and was reminded that I do indeed have beloved people in my life, even if I don't see them as often as I would like. In that people are home, in DC, I got to go home for a while.

But only for a brief time. While all those DC people were at home, I was not. I got to peep in on a tiny slice of their lives, but the day-to-day triumphs and struggles - I've no real idea.  Some emails, some phone calls, text messages and the funny pictures on FaceBook, sure, I know those, but I am more distant now, literally and figuratively. I'm less good about it than I used to be, but I do try to spend time keeping in touch from afar. But I've been away from DC for years now, and no number of emails will counterbalance that. I last lived in the area in 2012, a very different time.

In 2012, for instance, my mother was still alive. I drove by my childhood house, and would have loved to call her in Maine to report back on how it looked (I still can't abide by the blue shutters. They should be black. The front door should be red, as it was for 20 years - but it looks good other than that). But the phone lines don't reach across time, so I can't tell Mom much of anything, although I find her along with me on this trip more than I would have expected. You can never go home again, but you always want to tell Mom about your journeys, I guess.

And in leaving Florida, as I have in the many other places I've left, I've created another home to which I can never fully return. The friend's toddler daughter who was just learning to say my name and connect me as that goofy lady with the cat, her knowledge of me is already fading. Her family, who often welcomed me into their homes and holidays, are building their day-to-day life around those still in the area. Another friend's daughter is now, startlingly, old enough to start to drive, but I will only witness her mother's gradual release from chauffeuring duties and understand the specter of an emptying nest from a distance. The tides send some people out to sea and toss others up on the shore, and we adjust as we must to the ebb and flow.

New beginnings are built on endings, of course. Nothing new there. I know that, and yet some part of me sees the branching pathways over decades and spends too much time wondering: "what if"?  What if I had gone right instead of left? What if I had tried a little harder, stayed a little longer, been more uncomfortable, or conversely stayed more comfortable?  What if I had left [fill in the blank state] the year before or the year after? What if I had been a little nicer?  Or maybe more direct and meaner? What if I'd never taken that job? What could I have done differently in that job or friendship or tiny moment on a Tuesday in April? What if? What if?

I take probably too much comfort in the multiverse theory and think, well, in some simultaneous alternate reality, I did do that, or didn't do that, and life is unfolding in every possible way...somewhere.  Just not here. That the possibilities exist and are real in some theoretical physics ways provides to me with what people of more religious faith may translate to, well, it's all part of God's plan. In the meantime, (religious or not) we march on with our current chosen path, and see what bounties and boulders are thrown in our way.

In some multiverse, I never left DC any of the times I did leave DC, and so I accumulated a whole different life built on time in one place. In my head, I think there would be a continuity and intimacy in that, one I crave at times, although as I think on it, there is nothing to say that all of those multiverses where I stayed put would necessarily have more of that intimacy. I could have (and have in some times in some locations) stayed a cat lady with limited romantic prospects and varying friendships that fade out or fail to quite achieve lift off. You could make an argument that some of my friendships survive precisely because folks aren't stuck with me all of the time. I'm not unaware of the fact that while I can be kind, I can also be difficult. And my self-sufficiency and reticence can be a barrier to the vulnerability needed to connect.

On the day I sold my house, I spent the morning tidying up and saying goodbye to my first attempt as a homeowner. And while the house looked great, clean and bright, it no longer felt like home, as (warning: cat lady moment ahead) my cat had already been relocated. That day, that little furry beast was my home, my day-to-day companion who every morning continues to wake me up too damn early for breakfast. It was a comforting revelation on what I had feared would be an overly bittersweet day.

Home then is not only about location but company - it resides with the people (and critters) with whom through a combination of choice and circumstance we share our lives. As I have moved, I have witnessed other people's moves from place to place. And movement or not, I've also noted their homegroup of people change, as mine have too. Many have partnered or married (and sometimes, divorced, and sometimes again, re-partnered), and oftentimes many are now raising children. Friendships burst open and some flare out and others burn on. Some relatives have required care, and some parents and friends have passed away. Being long unpartnered and childless, I remain in some ways perpetually adolescent. This isn't as negative as it may sound, as it also leaves me open to new experience and with greater latitude to explore, which are some of many reasons why I will be starting a graduate program in the fall and am sitting in Toronto right now.

I move. And with each move I learn, and gain from that learning. But I also lose. The people that stay with you, day in, day out, over years and decades are in some ways the only people that fully know you. Having no current home and no long-term (non-feline) partner, in an in-between transition time, the allure of that depth of connection probably speaks to me more loudly than it does at other times when, as many will note, I have tended in the other direction, to have felt boxed-in or stagnant, strangled by ideas of what I am "supposed to be."  The truth is, over and over, I have chosen to move, I have chosen to leave, I have chosen some disconnection and dislocation in exchange for adventure, have foregone intimacy in the interest of possibility. As noted, at times I think this is a flaw, at times an asset, but if I put aside the strident need to judge, in the end, it is just who I am -- for now, in this moment, in this multiverse. Changes and choices continue every moment ahead. Who knows what kind of multiverse home you or I will slide into next?

You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.
-- Thomas Wolfe 

I dwell in Possibility –
-- Emily Dickinson