The usual suspects

Words won't hold together and I can't find the music I exactly want.
Slept fitfully and feel less than well. Beautiful yesterday, today is anyone's guess.
I hope to spend time in the studio. I just remembered the two paintings that were actually headed somewhere on Friday. That is promising, just enough mess to play around with, just enough revision to allow for something.

A bouquet of old cotton
the feather
the hand

This is my mythology...

It is now 3:13 P.M.

I decided to take a "personal day" around noon, once it was clear that I was not springing into action to head to the studio. A personal day? Seems like everyday is a personal day when you are a studio artist. This seems very extravagant, but I decide to roll with it.

I take a long hot shower and then get back in bed with my wet hair and begin reading "The Death of Bunny Munro" by Nick Cave. I can feel my dog's weight and warmth against my leg through the blanket- it is soothing. A strange grating noise starts up outside, they are working on the road in front of my house, perhaps burying a cable. I am not sure, but the vibrating noise concerns my dog and me for a minute and then I return to reading. I don't get very far, because it is clear I am very tired. My eyes are heavy and the bed feels better in the daytime than at night and I drift asleep.

Fragments of dream images pound at my head. It is that sleep that comes on suddenly and the barrage of images is almost too much and disjointed. One dream I remember is of my brother Sean. He is trying to explain how he was given some cuff links that were intended for me from our grandmother. I don't know why I would be given cuff links- so quickly the object turns into a bracelet. It was given to mark a death in the family. But, I was supposed to be the one to receive it and not Sean and he felt sad and guilty. I assured him it was nothing to worry about and it was not even an item I remembered or a death I cared to mark. I held the bracelet up into the light, the beads were dark and frosted, root beer colored. Each bead represented a landmark in Arkansas. This object does not exist in my family, I have never seen it before. There is more to the dream, but I can't quite remember. Family heirlooms and their secrets, getting them to the right people from beyond the grave was the message. There was also a box containing a pair of out of style black leather shoes and something more about a burial.

Occasionally, the sun would streak through the window and remind me that it was not night yet, that I am sleeping during the day and to wake me up to stretch, shift and turn. My hair reminds me of Beethoven from it drying against my pillow and the covers in my sleep. More fragments of words, songs, and dreams. Today's sleep is that of a growing teenager and the dreams are born out of avoidance.