Words and Flowers

Happy New Year!
I received a book called Creative is a Verb by Patti Digh. I think you'll like it, too. She is an excellent quote chooser. I'll share a few.

irreverent baking
I should be upstairs with the others, drumming up ways
to heal the world, save the animals, pray for water
in a far-off continent, devote the remainder of my days
to a catalog of restorations. But this morning, it was the matter
of scones that drew my gaze, and my feet remained
planted in the kitchen. One must never ignore the instinct
to create, is what I told myself, and soon the counter was stained
with flour, my hands sticky with dough, the house inked
with the smell of blueberry possibility, and I knew I was not wrong.
This was my prayer, my act of healing, my offering, my song.
~Maya Stein

"I am attracted to the unsaid." ~ Louise Gluck

"I plan to write more books whenever I can find the appropriate writing attire and color-coordinated pen." ~Miss Piggy

"Education ought to teach how to be in love always and what to be in love with." ~A. Clutton Brock

"In places like universities, where everyone talks too rationally, it is necessary for a kind of enchanter to appear." ~Joseph Beuys

"One looks, looks long, and the world comes in." ~ Joseph Campbell

"There once was an owl who sat in an oak, the more it heard, the less it spoke . . . the less it spoke, the more it heard.
~Gentlehawk

I do not make resolutions. I find list making enormously satisfying, but I do not wish to make plans that sit at the beginning of an entire year. It seems rather like trying to line up jumping beans.
I began this year with the making of more meatballs. Gumbo Lily reminded me of sweet and sour meatballs I made when our children were small. They tasted very good. I made a chocolate cake, too. I followed the recipe (sometimes I fudge) and it came out of the oven a prize winner.

I bought a box of watercolors and I am going to paint a tiny picture in my journal. Bill printed a few The Wind in the Willows pictures for me with his fancy printer. I shall frame them and put them close to our bed so I can dream of "messing about in boats" on the river and dining on picnic lunches stored in handy baskets.
Today I ironed my pink flannel pajamas and put them on after my bath. It's very cold outside so they were the perfect attire for a stay inside day.
I'm thinking of my students. I shall see them on Monday and even though I don't like the idea of being away from my homey home for nine hours, I do like those wobbly fourteen year old humans very much and I look forward to their company.
Flannel sheets are singing their siren song to me and my new Daisy Newman book about her writing inspiration throughout her long life is on the nightstand. She's joyful just like Gladys Taber. I really like her.
Up the stairs I go.
Here we go into 2011 together. Nice.