Reflecting on Reflection

Often the reflection on the lake is more believable than the physical sky and surroundings.  
The actual clouds and hills seems so dense and far, while the reflection pulls my attention right to it.  Possibility and depth rippling on the surface.
What lurks?   

Kitchens

Stretching my sewing tape end to end on one side of the kitchen, and adding a foot to the other, makes my kitchen 5′ x 6′. 
It works fine.  Two burners, tiny fridge, tiny sink.
The sun streams in.  
The white reflects the brightness of the day.  
I was going to leave it at that, until I started remembering different kitchens in my life.
The first was climbing up and sitting on the edge of the sink, who knows how old, as my mom cooked dinner.  I would do different antics, wanting to lighten the mood.  I remember vividly, mimicking an Indian accent, pretending I was “Krishnamurti speaking” over and over “Krisnamurti, here, and speaking”. 
The next was the most depressing kitchen I’ve ever been in.  I’ll leave that one alone.
On to the one filled with sun and much fun.  A huge round oak table that supported our changing lives- from my mom pounding out a story on her Smith & Corona to my friends gathering around after cutting class, eating everything in sight because of the munchies.
Summers and weekends we would return to where I pretend to be Krisnamurti.  To the table that held a chip, marking the number of years of my dad’s sobriety, proudly displayed in a knot of the wood.  The same table that I slammed my fist down upon, in anger, wanting so badly, to prove many a point.
Then came the low to the ground table in Guatemala.  The hours and hours of drinking coffee, philosophizing, creativity flowing, under a thatch roof.  A kitchen filled with beautiful hand made everything- from the dishes to the yogurt.  The wake from the occasional boat passing, hitting the dock just out the open doors.
Skipping over many kitchens to the one that I made with my own hands.   Heavy, round cornered, 1950’s stove and refrigerator.  A stain on the wall where the match strike became the light for the burners.  Simple.  Easy to change.  And change it did!  Into a state of the art re-model.  Expanding the standard, and raising the height of the cupboards, to meet that of my then husband.
Coming around, full circle, to the sun on my back, this morning, here, in my tiny kitchen.

Inspiration Competition

Hanging my legs over the end of the dock, feet dangling in the water, I hear a young voice, “I need to get my feet into that lake!  I JUST need to do this!”.  Mom, dad, sister, and grandma are the audience, seeming to roll their eyes at maybe a common type of drama… and by the way the girl keeps looking over at me, I take it that I, a total stranger, am her inspiration.   

So off the girl goes, out of sight with her dad, toward the stairs where she can actually step down to dabble her tiny feet into the lake. 

Time passes, I am enjoying.  Being.  The sun is out and everyone seems to be enjoying too.  I completely forget about the girl.

Then, I feel a vibration in the dock that I am sitting on.  A little shivering body, running, bypassing her family who are shaking their heads and sort of clucking their tongues, approaches me.   Making sure I see her, entirely soaking wet, dripping from the neck down, she gives me one of the most mischievous grins I’ve ever seen.  No words but I am getting the message from her that “My fun out did your fun!” 

It took all I had to not dive in, without a word, right then and there.

Glass of the Past

This morning the sun hits my latest work sitting in the window and I am reminded of some of the glass in my past.   

Broken windshields at the dump.  Sifting up the glass and letting it pour out of our palms slowly to the ground, eerily saying, “Jeeeewwwwweeelllllllsss” like pirates at a treasure chest.


Beach glass found on the shore.  Lunch bags full of it stored under my bed.

Shot glasses in Mexico.   Brown, green, and blue rims. Bought with my allowance money to add to my windowsill’s collection.

Glass, the material that pulled me full heartedly and passionately into a career, a business, and reminds me everyday that, yes, I am, an artist.


The Bells

6:45 a.m. every morning sounds a horn.  The same again at 7, 7:45, 8:00, noon, 1:00, 5:00, and then FINALLY at 6:00. The sound comes from this tower smack dab in the center of Corning, NY.  They have named the tower “Little Joe”, tall, white, with a glass blower’s silhouette painted on the 4 sides.  


The tone is a cross between a bull horn & fog horn.  It is LOUD.  Since last May it has yelled in my ear that it is time to get up.  It could be heard as charming and quaint history that the once factory town woke it’s workers.  

To me, it screams “Work Ethic” plain and simple.   

You are born, grow up, the factory calls, the product must be made, time to get up, time to get there, time for lunch, time to go home.  

Life over. 

Waking each day to the sound triggered my inner rebel who says, you go on to the call of the bell, I’m going to go and do my own thing.

My “own thing” brings me to Hammondsport, NY.  Where the chimes wait until 8 am to sound from this church.  And I have to laugh that the 12:00 chimes are sounding as I write this. They will sound for the last time of the day at 6.  

It is musical chimes!  Like someone in the basement actually playing a song from their heart.  Just joy.  Light hearted joy.  

Now, what do I do with that?

The Fall

In April I was asked what my hesitations were about doing a job I was being interviewed for-?  Emphatic and over reacting to the question, I responded with “LACK OF MY OWN MY CREATIVITY!” ….. and then……with about just as much gusto as my response to NOT wanting it….. I accepted the job when it was offered.  
I am now coming down from the summer of working in a corporate glassblowing job which has kicked my butt on one hand, and landed me in one of the most beautiful places in the world on the other.
The butt being kicked?  So many ways….. one of which is my wounded foot from a bicycle accident I had on the way to work.  While, being the great employee that I am, I kept working on and stomping around in the studio on for the last 2 weeks of the job.

And, now the job is over, I allow my foot to heal here at the southern end of Keuka Lake, NY, one of the most spectacular places I’ve seen.   Fall is on the way.  Fall is here.  Daily.  

And…. I am back to that place I was in April-  My own creativity.  My own life.

Only now, it stares me in the face with a “how could you do that to me” look. And….I get it.  I get how the body will stop to get my attention when I am so busy that nothing else can.  It is part of a way that I used to live and am used to living.  It is an old authority.  
As the new way just keeps loyally tapping me on the shoulder and reminding me that it is here.  I turn toward it to get a glimps.  There is support in taking its hand and walking with it.  Maybe just for a bit today, slowly, out into the fall.