Dispatch from LA

Hello, faithful readers. I sit here on a cold February morn to type out this missive to you — a post-Valentine’s message. I picture you on the other end of these words, landing like little smoke signals from my world into your digital mailboxes.

I’m up to my usual tricks: printing and cutting tiny photos to paste into my writing journal. The doves above were painted by my friend Sheila. Aren’t they marvelous? She feeds them each morning as they land on her window ledge in cold, wintery Madrid.

Jo and Mark visited for an art playdate earlier this month, and Jo and I had a hilarious drive from my hood to Koreatown during the golden hour afterward. I look forward to more art playdates with both of them.

I visited the headlands of Mendocino at the end of January. How wild and lovely that landscape is, and how good it felt to walk beside that ferocious Pacific with no one else around.

I imagined traveling more in retirement, but I’ve only made a few small trips — mostly because of worry about the fur people. Thankfully, at the height of my cat anxiety, I received a transmission that felt like magic. An old, reliable cat sitter I thought was lost to me forever returned and made contact. I had written these words in my journal a few days before: “Something may yet present itself. Stay open.” Evidence of magic or delusion, I cannot say, but I’m going with magic.

Thusly, I booked a long hoped-for return to Paris with my sister. We’ll be staying in the Batignolles district in the 17th arr. for a week and then heading south to Fontainebleau for a few days. Going somewhere for an extended stay that is usually considered a day trip from Paris feels right to me. It also feels right to return to a city where I’ve been three times before — to the parks and streets that inspire me. To the Parisian buses that I love. I love the metro too, but the buses, with their comfortable seats and giant windows offering expansive views of Paris, thrill me.

I know not everyone has the ease or safety that allows for such travel — safety from ICE agents and kidnappers, and, so far, from serious illness and disease. There is much suffering in our world. I see it and carry it with me, even as I allow myself moments of joy and wonder, learning again and again how to hold both.

I have a couple of new sketchbook fliporamas over on the Substack.  They’re one-take wonders where I hem and haw about art-making and life.

Thanks for tuning in, friends. Leave some connecting words if you wish, and let me know how you’re doing, what you’re making, where you’re going, what you’re cooking, and who you’re reading. A curious retiree in the City of Angels wants to know.

And finally, I share a poem that I found to be rich.  I’ve emphasized the lines I had to write in my journal for their sheer beauty.