One walks briskly in a diagonal cutting the distance at a traffic light. Gliding through the park to look at the grass still green in January. Having particular pedestrian patterns one would think that there wouldn’t be any surprises, Turning the corner on the street you take when it’s a bit warmer and has wider friendly sidewalks — discovery. Looking down briefly to check the time there it is, shadows like lace.
Moving gently, shadows are like lace in this light.
Just around the corner I walked in for lunch and everything became blue. Sometimes it just happens. Everything looks so different from how you remember it. Still, you are pleased by the turn of hue. The becoming of blue.
This wonderful new book made me think about all the written correspondence I did for many years to my dear friend in Japan. I always adorned the envelopes with special lettering and drawing. Often in the letters themselves I would add noodling in the margins. In turn I received many Aerogrammes and letters typed on the back of movie flyers and other Japanese ephemera.
I wish I had documented them but alas I’m not sure if I have photos I can put my hands on.
I have one on my desk and play with it often when mulling a problem. I view it from one angle and then another. I listen to the sound as I rock it back and forth. I explore it’s line and displacement of space.
It quiets my thoughts. It provides space for clarity.
from Wikipedia:
The toy was invented and developed by naval engineer Richard James in the early 1940s and demonstrated at Gimbels department store inPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania in November 1945. The toy was a hit, selling its entire inventory of 400 units in ninety minutes. James and his wifeBetty formed James Industries in Philadelphia to manufacture Slinky and several related toys such as the Slinky Dog and Suzie, the Slinky Worm.
I first met Hazel in 2009. I grew to know more of her in words on twitter, then images on flickr, then her blog The Asian Welder.
We corresponded in e-mail the most during her road trip in 2009 when she and her mate {Hank} set off in their Airstream trailer on a trip across the west.
We had short chats about her travels. I followed her blog. She disappeared from twitter. Later I found it just took too much of her time. She wanted more to be making art and living. I watched for postings about her doings and viewed her art from the beautiful photos she posted.
I viewed life through her lens. I found great beauty and joy.
In June I visited her blog and found that she was on a new journey. She had cancer. Months have passed and the truth of this journey is more clear. Hazel has chosen to live her life without chemo. To find peace and an end on this earth in the same beauty which she has shown all of us that have know her in some way.
I am saddened to lose this kind soul. But I prepare myself to let go and know that her spirit holds a place in my heart always. She walks in beauty on this earth.
Aloha Hazel. hazel colditz, (aka buddhagirlAZ) sculptor, lover of nature the finest art, passionate photographer, mother, Buddhist w/alchemist tendencies.
I once loved a girl, her skin it was bronze
With the innocence of a lamb, she was gentle like a fawn
I courted her proudly but now she is gone
Gone as the season she’s taken
Through young summer’s breeze, I stole her away
From her mother and sister, though close did they stay
Each one of them suffering from the failures of their day
With strings of guilt they tried hard to guide us
Of the two sisters, I loved the young
With sensitive instincts, she was the creative one
The constant scapegoat, she was easily undone
By the jealousy of others around her
For her parasite sister, I had no respect
Bound by her boredom, her pride to protect
Countless visions of the other she’d reflect
As a crutch for her scenes and her society
Myself, for what I did, I cannot be excused
The changes I was going through can’t even be used
For the lies that I told her in hopes not to lose
The could-be dream-lover of my lifetime
With unknown consciousness, I possessed in my grip
A magnificent mantelpiece, though its heart being chipped
Noticing not that I’d already slipped
To a sin of love’s false security
From silhouetted anger to manufactured peace
Answers of emptiness, voice vacancies
Till the tombstones of damage read me no questions but, “Please
What’s wrong and what’s exactly the matter?”
And so it did happen like it could have been foreseen
The timeless explosion of fantasy’s dream
At the peak of the night, the king and the queen
Tumbled all down into pieces
“The tragic figure!” her sister did shout
“Leave her alone, God damn you, get out!”
And I in my armor, turning about
And nailing her to the ruins of her pettiness
Beneath a bare lightbulb the plaster did pound
Her sister and I in a screaming battleground
And she in between, the victim of sound
Soon shattered as a child ’neath her shadows
All is gone, all is gone, admit it, take flight
I gagged twice, doubled, tears blinding my sight
My mind it was mangled, I ran into the night
Leaving all of love’s ashes behind me
The wind knocks my window, the room it is wet
The words to say I’m sorry, I haven’t found yet
I think of her often and hope whoever she’s met
Will be fully aware of how precious she is
Ah, my friends from the prison, they ask unto me
“How good, how good does it feel to be free?”
And I answer them most mysteriously
“Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?”
You have to leave the city of your comfort
and go into the wilderness of your intuition.
What you’ll discover will be wonderful.
What you’ll discover is yourself.
After spending several hours at the beach recently I saw the echos of hurricane Irene. She had torn up the boardwalk for miles. Torn siding and shingles off the sides of houses and buildings and lifted sands to cover the dunes and their protective fences.
But with all this destruction there was something I hadn’t seen in quite some time on the shores that are manicured for the long tourist season. I saw nature. I could see piles of driftwood; a welcome natural addition that these days are almost impossible to find. I can remember when we would build fires with this wood and stay on the beach long past dark. Sometimes we would cook one or two of the fish we had caught that day.
I was able to sift through the plastic bottle caps that one finds now instead of glass word round by the sea to find some shells that had not been crushed to pieces by beach cleaning equipment. I found small mussel shells making an ink spatter pattern on the wet sands.
