3.01.2004

We had a nice Sunday despite the cold flat grey sky and the constant rain. In the morning we joined JJ and Tebone for breakfast (muchas gracias, JJ my dear) and went walking with them along the river. We looked at bright yellow daffodils and pale lavender crocus flowers, bright orange glimmers of saffron hidden between the curvaceous petals. We watched the geese and ducks at the riverside. It was cold and spitting rain on us. Our noses were all red.

In the afternoon I played with three other ladies, practicing traditional motions with silken veils the same bright colors as early spring flowers. We swooped and swirled, the motion hypnotic and a true delight to the eye, the silk veils moving like water through the air. When I left the dance studio the sun had nestled into the hills to the west.

S & I drove to our friends' home in the woods beside the lake; they're wilder and crazier people than most, they live modestly and honestly and live off the land as well as they can. Their home is like Wonderland; both are artists and work BIG. Sculptures, plywood cut-outs, junk turned to art, everything bright and colorful and funky, they've filled their yard and some of their acreage with monkeys in trees, giant chickens, ufo's, hands reaching out of the ground, the Cheshire cat, and a brightly painted gingerbread house that functions as the chicken coop.
Springtime is the time for baby chicks, and they happily showed their adorable little "peeps" to us, tiny bundles of fluff with yellow beaks and feet. Mrs B showed me her favorite little chick, which was the color of spun gold with a rusty iridescent brown stripe down its back. Around its eyes were black feathers in a curving shape like the traditional heiroglyphic Egyptian eye, like Cleopatra.

We had a sweet conversation as always, and talked much of friends and concerns about addictions and health and safety and the future. It is not easy to see loved ones falter and lose themselves. Hope is like a little bundle of fluff on wobbly legs.

Tiny little bundles of fluff are delicate.