Tiny Things

An excerpt from my journal, 19 July:

There seem to be two things I've done in the past few weeks: beading and writing.

I love taking small, banal insignificant and often boring things and making them--by putting them together in different patterns and shapes and galaxies and universes with different stars and worlds--into grand and grandiose creations that perhaps I sometimes take too much pride in. I love watching them come together, though. To see something in progress; to combine colors and spaces and silence, to watch and appropriately note where things seem best to fit, to be careful patterns, and to watch the creativity of years come out. But perhaps not years. My mind is filled with the words, and the maps, and "banal" is my new favorite word; I keep seeing it in the books I'm reading. Apparently, I should also be reading Joyce, in addition to those books I've currently read and/or finished.

I think this is a good descriptor of not only what I've been doing the last few weeks, but also what my summers are like: lots of (usually) tiny things that come together and make up a few months.

Kali, one of the girls I went to NZ with, finished our website. I would recommend you check it out. It has all of our pieces (essay & creative), photos, and the obligatory "meet us!" section, which isn't anywhere near as bad as most of the author descriptions on the inside cover of a novel.

As I said, this is some of what this particular summer has consisted of:

These last beads are handmade...by me (be impressed. I don't do that much). They've been drying for this past week while I've been (back) in Colorado. I can't wait to use them.

m.