Rambles

1. No Spring yet. No sun, no warmth, no seedlings breaking through a very wet ground. But one of these days it will be 60 degrees here and I will be reclaiming my yard and planting lettuce and petunias in my half circle garden. My loves: family, friends, writing, camera, Provincetown, gardening. The future is bright.

2. Has anyone else checked out the iPhone app "Waterlogue? This is what it does to regular photos: makes them into watercolors. The app cost is $ 2.99 and I think it's the deal of the century because it is super simple and super fun. And speaking of deals, I'm also loving my monthly Groovebook. For the same cost of $ 2.99 a month, up to 100 photos from my iPhone each month are printed and bound into a photo book, then mailed to me. If you go on line and put in the code JASPER16 you'll get a book for free. No mailing costs ever. It's pretty cool.

3. I am writing and sending out queries to agents and publishers. I have been languishing on my second book for going on three years now, maybe more, and there are legitimate reasons why I don't bring myself to finish it. SO! I've put it aside and have begun a new novel--four siblings and their mother. My favorite character is the oldest sister, Claudia, who maintains her affair with a married man by donning costumes and wigs. I am fired up to write again. It's a great thing for me.

4. I thought this brief essay might be a blog post but it doesn't feel okay to let it stand by itself. So here it is tucked in to other rambles. Has this ever happened to you? 

Have you ever loved anyone who hated you? It's an odd awful thing.

There is no way around it; no minds to change, no errors to mend.  The light of it is well in the past and so it will stay. But every once in a while my senses viscerally remember how deeply and mutually love and whimsy and creativity was given and shared.  But--we were both obsessed. Even with full good lives we couldn't keep a distance.  There was no solution. 

At any point, even through a bad ending,  I was not prepared for hatred. Even now I rail against such an ending.  I became villain and vilified and that was that. My friends told me this was someone without a conscience. I knew some of that was true. But I went too far, myself--I romanticized what was not and I failed to settle for something less. My part was not good. 

Even so, something dormant inside me became alive and has stayed alive and now the  barbs and bitterness no longer reach me and they likely are no longer even formed into thought. 

Still, it is somehow not right to be hated by someone you loved.

5. What the heck is the right and best balance for an unbridled creative life that is also responsible and steady? This image, posted on Facebook by my friend Lo, is pretty telling. This explains why I hate the chores!

                                 (click on the image to enlarge)

Enough rambles for today. Slowly and surely I am going to be blogging more often and I am so glad.  

Love

kj