Homing

I was pulled away from my website design and the news of the California wildfires, to take our dogs out to the fields before bedtime. Usually it is my husband’s task, but as he was working late, it was me who went to the droughty, dusty field and the large, starry sky. I was feeling a bit grumpy at first, to have to leave my work, put my boots on….but was soon just overwhelmed with thankfulness to be out in the dry, yes, but not-on-fire fields….looking back at the lights of home. And everything fell into place, as sometimes happily happens.

Difficulties forgotten, with the moon and the sweet night air for company, I had the answer to the question I had been pondering of what the central idea of my 2008 calendar should be. The calendar I make is one of my favorite creations, and I always want the words and images to be especially satisfying….as I and all the other women who buy one will be seeing and using it every day. I hadn’t been able to decide if the theme should be nature or the work of women or books or….what? But under the stars, I knew it should be about Home….in a domestic sense, as the vessel for many of our dreams, our creativity, our comforts….and in the larger sense of the Earth as our abode-with all its beauties and gifts.

And now the rain we have been waiting for months to arrive has come, as I hope relief will come to those who need it in California. And I am inspired to get back to making my new website lovely and begin gathering illustrations for A Calendar of Ones Own…and even cheerfully (don’t laugh-beloved man-when you read this…I am trying!) taking the dogs out yet again.

*the leaf photograph was taken last Autumn, when the fields were green*