Alfred, 'splaining things

...while mother Molly the Unsinkable and I listen

Anonymous Garden

Afternoon Stalking

Timing is everything. Time is now.

-- thinking about tomorrow's "Strategy Workshop: Getting Where You Want To Go As An Artist" at The Studios of Key West [with Naomi Cohn, "poet, professional coach and strategic planner for non-profits and individual artists...currently in residence at TSKW"]

-- certainly, it is my desire to devote full attention to my heart/mind's wishes...It is fortunate that I have employment that is financing the beginnings of this future I am pursuing. The time will come, when I make transition from living in two worlds and begin to "sing a simple song", and fulfill the development of the crafts I began so long ago, before necessity required that I shift gears. The idea of blooming, blossoming, unfolding, unfurling, of noticing/observing and expressing that process, appeals to my nature and I want to feed it.

-- earlier this afternoon I was taking a break and reading Jeanette Winterson's novel, The PowerBook. Her character says: "Here's my life, steel-hitched at one end into my mother's belly, then thrown out across nothing, like an Indian rope trick. Continually I cut and retie the rope. I haul myself up, slither down. What keeps the tension is the tension itself -- the pull between what I am and what I can become. The tug of war between the world I inherit and the world I invent."

The timing was inspiring.

The character goes on to say: "I keep pulling at the rope. I keep pulling as hard as I can. If the rope starts to fray in places, it doesn't matter. I am so tightly folded, like a fern or an ammonite, that as I unravel, the actual and the imagined unloose together, just as they are spliced together -- life's fibres knotted in time."

Instrumental moment in Santa Fe -- October 2009

one thing leads to another

[it's celtic blood runs through my veins]


It was that phrase I searched, finding this, and in finding that, I found this. I'll understand better what this means to me later, but for now I  appreciate serendipitous connection.


Many of you will find the links on Lang's website interesting and useful.

Lignum Vitae, matted and framed

"Lignum Vitae" -- Dr. Monica Dahl has three prints of this image [from my Monica's Yarden series] -- 

this is the first matted and framed --

Rooster comes a callin'

fleurs du jour

latest from Monica's Yarden

Monday trek to Key West Butterfly Conservatory

dog park by "Louie's Backyard"

in memory of all of us

Not long after my mother died, I closed up our home and began traveling -- the journey continues, even as I sit in my front porch living room garden this beautiful morning -- it was early in my quest for purpose that I found these words of Steve Jobs that continue to inspire: "Almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Two Strings

Einstein, the Chorkie

friend Karen G. just adopted Einstein -- he'll be companion and willing lapdog for her mother Jackie --

he's so damn cute it nearly brings me to tears!! [snuffling sniffily]

more of the bird

artist...young

"He had not died but he had faded out like a film in the sun. He had been lost or had wandered out of existence for he no longer existed. How strange to think of him passing out of existence in such a way, not by death, but by fading out in the sun or by being lost and forgotten somewhere in the universe!"
--James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Patrons of Art

Sara Anderson (we work together at Parrot Key Resort) purchased a number of my images as gifts for family -- she chose this one for herself and placed in a simple black frame -- nice, Sara! 

(photographed on balcony porch outside our office)

Isle of Wight

I'd like to visit The Isle of Wight
and sit in the Channel for a while --
[share some breath with kindred creatures
and contemplate the miles --]
Winged to flight,
where exactly is "too high"?
And when will the wax
begin to melt?
Ah! Then hurled to sea
by gravity --
My square one.
In the Channel I'll sit again for a while
and contemplate the miles.


©Michele R. Strub
8 Sept 11

Deb Hudson

Deb Hudson, vocals

-- this woman sings her heart out -- 

If you're in Key West and have opportunity, go go go listen to Deb and the Groove Daddies! 

This Friday and Saturday at Virgilio's, 10p to 1a --

and the Groove Daddies

 Din Allen, bass 

                            Tim McAlpine, guitar

                      Mick Kilgos, drums