Oulalie

Pillow Talk

2022-06-24T20:08:00.000-07:00

Today I made a dress out of a pillowcase. It is so comfortable. One of the things about fucking Parkinsons is that it has made me like the princess in the princess and the pea. Super sensitive and uncomfortable in ways i never knew possible.

Clothes are not as simple any more, because now i have to factor things like buttons and hooks and is the zipper really easy to move.

A pillow is very easy to make - just cut the sewed side, sew on two scraps of fabric for the straps and draw on it. I'm just hoping that this pen is actually permanent, I'll let you know.

We Are

2022-06-17T17:36:00.002-07:00

1, 2, 3...It’s December!

2020-12-03T17:07:00.107-08:00

Greetings and happy December!

It’s time to play!

It’s time to make things with your hands.

Make yourself laugh. Embrace what you can and rub elbows with the rest.

Apologies for multiple posts of this. Computer troubles.

This morning has pink cheeks and fast rabbits

2020-10-29T14:21:00.004-07:00

Purpose, thankfully, has risen with the sun this morning. Like the autumn fog, it will not last past noon but maybe it is enough for now. Now.

Now.

Critters out, it’s cold! My edges have edges.

Humming birds land and become shiny, trembling leaves on the crusty old lemon tree.

Now - purring and chirping above my head in the strawberry tree, bejeweled for a visit with these exotic hovercraft.

Upturned chandelier cup blossoms in pink and rose - miniature goblets held tenderly in the front paws of the grazing bees as they insert their heads to collect pollen.

Did you know bees have hair on there eyeballs for just such harvesting?

Sounds of joy and satisfaction vibrate through the garden and over it’s rickety walls I imagine on the wings of butterflies and other flying things.

It’s been a busy morning. Rabbits have been exploring my alterations to our small yard. Running and popping - a sign I may have passed their first inspection.

Pepper, the black and white rabbit, has turned his attention now to the cat who, when hungry, stalks the rabbits in sport, disregarding their obvious irritation and initial protestations at this is childish morning ritual. The ill-humored rabbit will tire and eventually charge the cat made to run at full speed, ramming his head into the cats body like a speeding snow plough.

Late October. It seems to be the season for the tiny herd bird.

Collage in the Covid

2020-10-12T09:35:00.002-07:00

Here we are in France again…

2020-09-11T11:05:00.015-07:00

Hello! Greetings from France!

I’m doing what I do every year at this time. I’m running around after those boys in the Tour de France.

I’ve just got my sketchbook no watercolor set this time but that’s OK. They’re going so fast this year...I have just enough time to find a place to sit before I’m jogging on to the next town, or up the next hill...phew. Sketching is so tiring!

It’s beautiful here. I’m so glad I came over

It always makes me feel good to be in the French countryside. I love when the ancient stone houses draped in crawling vines that will silmultaneously hold them together and tear them apart, nudge everything toward the middle of the already tiny streets.

Everything has character. Yes, it’s all so good.

You’ll have to join me next year.

A word about the mistakenly maligned

2020-04-24T12:39:00.001-07:00

The dandelion

It isn’t often that I can say something that my mother doesn’t already know. Frequently when I call her or stop by unannounced, she will proclaim that she knew it was me, or knew that I was coming - which always leaves me wondering how often she is prepared for me to materialize when I don’t.

So, the other day she was leaving my house. I had already begun to close the door, when I hear her talking again, which is entirely normal, and she is asking me if she can pull out this dandelion from one of my flower pots. I imagine the action being impossible for her to resist - the question to me a mere formality, I imagine her fingernails are already half pressed through the tight stalk, anticipating the snap and the flood of sweet righteousness that will follow. Productive. Orderly. Right.

“A dandelion did you say?”

Yes”

‘Oh no, leave it please! Do you not know about dandelions?” I say - thrilled that she doesn’t.

DANDELIONS ARE AMAZING They are great for breaking up hard soil with their tap root and bringing nutrients from way down, up to the surface for other plants to use. You can eat the whole plant - which is super full of nutrients, vitamins and healing properties. These rogue “weeds” are veritable treasure chests of health and well-being.

Bottom line they are so truly benevolent -great for us, great for the garden. It’s hard to imagine what we all were (and incredibly still are) thinking by spraying roundup on them for so many years. I feel like it’s a reminder to be flexible, and to not get so wrapped up in the way we think things should be, that we mis the beauty in how they actually are.

I love it when the underdog is so victorious.

When you can’t draw... Rip

Figuring stuff out

2019-09-11T09:27:00.002-07:00

OK hi, so here I am ready to dig in the garden… Right? Gosh darn it it’s hard to figure out one’s own schedule. Occasionally I yearn for the days when a paper grid was just put in front of me and i had to block in my hours and that was that. I can try putting a grid in front of myself but it doesn’t work… I’m too smart or stupid I’m not sure which. Just plain contradictory i guess - I usually end up doing the opposite of what I say I should do to myself. So I’m ready… Let’s see what I’m ready for...the opposite of what...

… Because getting dressed in the morning is important.

Today she is wearing her readiness, and she’s not sure where she got it

Behind the screen summer 2019

2019-09-10T10:32:00.000-07:00

I was beginning to get pissed off that I couldn’t travel in the summer and I never get to take my daughter anywhere. I was watching the Tour de France lamenting the fact that I was not in France when I realized I could pretend I was. I pulled out my watercolor set, snapped a few screenshots from my computer and started painting. Perfect! You don’t have to actually be in France it turns out to paint it! And then of course, that old “what is real” question starts looping its way into every brush stroke...what am I seeing, who am I, whose perception is more real? Right? And then it’s just fun - and exactly what you want to be doing, no matter where you are.

Basse Couture, just keep trying

2019-09-05T10:11:00.001-07:00

Hello again. I really have a hard time being a decent human being and putting clothes on in the morning if I’m not forcefully compelled to do it. Even sometimes when I do have a reason I don’t do it which inevitably embarrasses my daughter. It kind of holds a person back. So here I am again trying. Not that hard mind you. Who am I kidding? It is really fucking hard being me sometimes, especially when I say things like that because I’ve got it so good compared with so many people. Yeah I have Parkinson’s and severe scoliosis and a herniated disc and degenerative spine disorder… and I don’t have any money at all and I can’t seem to make any… but what the heck I’ve got great friends and that’s more important than any of that.

So friends, you’ll be happy to know I put clothes on this morning kind of like as if I was going to work… Indeed that’s what I’m trying to do - again - some intentional work as opposed never ending backbreaking unintentional work. The thing is, my Parkinson’s symptoms are extremely unpredictable, so almost everything I do is interrupted by multiple spells of immobility, (literally - can’t move, with any efficiency at all during these ‘off’ times) - which can last for minutes or hours depending on what I eat, my sleep cycle, hormones etc.

But you know, I’m going to try,and that feels kind of all right. So here we are, in

Basse Couture, my little thrift store “what was she wearing? section.

Because getting dressed in the morning is important.

Today I am wearing a fruit bats concert t-shirt with a cut neck, and a skirt that I bought for like .25 cents at the Starr King rummage sale this year. Oh my gosh - I went in the last 15 mins or so and got some great stuff that was INCREDIBLY cheep. I am also wearing long black sox which you can’t see, and some really great shoes...ok, no shoes actually.

My Window

2019-05-22T05:55:00.001-07:00

This is my window at 5:30 am.

Up. Still looking for the dreams i cant remember, dissolving slowly into the dawn. Looking for substance when i think it might be absence that i need.

Need. What a strange word. It is sharp and not all together trustworthy.

Feed. There is a better one. Get off your butt and feed the animals. The rabbits, the parakeets, the chicken, the snail, the gecko and the frog.

New Year’s Day Monster

2019-01-01T11:16:00.003-08:00

What kind of monster am I?

What kind are you?

Summertime sports...WHAT?

2018-08-14T09:05:00.001-07:00

This summer I saw Peter Sagan. I really, actually did as he and others whizzed through the foothills of Santa Barbara on the California Amgen Tour. It was an exciting few seconds and I’m glad I did it, just like in Bordeaux some 30 years ago I was glad to wait by the side of the road for hours in the blazing sun to see this whisp of a Pelaton and a handful of loud speeding cars come in and go out of focus before I realized anything had happened.

I would love to be traveling right now...I say that but truthfully my body is so unpredictable even going to Trader Joe’s worries me. It feels awful to freeze up while cruising for food - trying to act normal and needing to hold on to my cart just to stay standing. That could be a whole nother kind of problem on the banks of the Seine.

Is nother a word?? This is why Robbie whoops my butt at boggle. Because I’m willing to be vulnerable...ready to get creative but “nother” is no Sagon bunnyhop on the cobbles. It’s more like ...those World Cup guys when they get tapped by another player and fling themselves across the field crying and peeking up to see if anyone saw this injustice.

Just give me a yellow card...and take those points.

This summer I am watching. I am watching basketball, hockey, all the Olympics, tennis, horse racing, always Formula one and the Tour de France, the World Cup and premiere league football or soccer as we call it. I’m not watching American football - have decided it’s a really messed up sport. Besides, I’m traveling abroad, thank you...in my tv. In my mind and what else...

I can’t think. The thing is, I realized that sports is a huge connector. - and its a world I know nothing about - and so this summer I’m learning. I’m watching. Occasionally I’m shouting out or whooping. Feeling like not just one of the guys, but one of the planet, in admiration of greatness i guess.

One lump or two?

2018-06-09T06:06:00.003-07:00

Have you ever taken a walk on the beach and found yourself laying down on your belly, fully clothed staring at a 1 inch patch of sand for a really long time? If you can get past the idea that people may be talking about you, maybe questioning your motives or judgement, it’s a better experience. It’s magic actually. Flea size sand dollars, exquisitely perfect super tiny shells, and miniature sea urchin spines are the surprising norm in this thing we call sand.

Sand the singular, one thing - one word - like chickens only I guess that’s actually plural but you’ll see, it’s really a singular bias we have. Anyone who has owned chickens might appreciate that It’s easy to think of them as one thing, at first but they are highly individual.

Each one with its own everything, history, physical make up, preferences etc...

It’s fun to see these individuals sometimes is all I’m really saying.

I can’t find my glasses, so if there are more misspellings than usual...that might be why. I can’t see..

Walking the Line

2018-06-06T18:33:00.000-07:00

Between one and many.

Between solid and liquid.

Between knowing and not knowing.

Between chaos and order.

Between the pebbles and boulders

Night and day and...What we see

2018-06-03T18:41:00.001-07:00

At 5am there was a bison at my window. It was giant and I believe prehistoric, long face clearly bending down to look in. It stayed still and quiet as belief receded and then came at me, a tsunami of adrenaline there was a bison in my GARDEN.

My undulating heater breathed warmth over my legs. What was this light? Liquid something - more and less viscous, the bison would slowly become my strawberry tree, and then turn back again.

Back and forth, the light rolled through me in waves, into the bison - a long slow pour until his black silouette became a salad of leaves and strings of little green pearls.

Night had turned it’s self inside out and was day again.

Again.

1, 2, 3, 4.

Morning, afternoon, evening, night_

Finding

2018-05-31T09:00:00.002-07:00

It is important to go adventuring. You take a little bit of home with you and you bring a little of your adventure back. It is our conversation with the world, our life.

Eventually we create paths to places we know - that have become familiar, and we create new ones - into the unknown which, with time and revisitation, become known, and familiar.

The adventure is, in part, you facing your fear of not knowing. It is learning to listen to yourself, to be kind to yourself and to take aim. It is also about learning how to hold or sit with a little of that thing that worries you.

I think of my rabbit digging her holes. Sometimes they are huge (we know this because we have run tape measures down them). Sometimes there is a surprise in them - like that one morning a gopher popped out where she was digging.

Sometimes she digs, and then needs to cover the entrance and does so by doing a little jack hammer motion with her front paws that i have never seen before.

Sometimes she has to close it with her friend Pepper, our other rabbit, in it....

And sometimes when she turns around there is a girl with a hose who gives her a little love spray.

The point is, its ok to go, to be scared, to not know. GO - go into it and study the details, it is how we grow, how we learn to love , share and become...sensitive, and caring enough to even clean our friends ears....

I couldn’t find the photo of pepper cleaning her ears - and i am TOTALLY struggling with Blogger in my ipad...so i give up for now, but you get the idea.