Day and Night

It fascinates me, how we physically articulate our environments. Probably, we can all imagine how many New Yorkers translate their town; fast strides, fixed gazes.
I’m still getting acquainted with Richmond’s spirit, and don’t yet know how the people here speak the city with their movements. But, I gotta say, intuition’s telling me that this shot of us on the porch is distinctly channeling our new neighborhood. Can’t you tell we moved slowly through a hot afternoon? That there’s a cemetery down the street?

A Walk Through Oregon Hill

This place might be haunted.

Since We've Been Here

We bought a grill and grilled on it

Kitty played outside for the first time in ten years

We drank wine on our front porch

and the dog sat with us

We watched a spider eat a ladybug, then a mosquito, then a green fly

We spent three dollars on three pounds of summer squash at the Byrd House Market

We spent four dollars on movie tickets at the historic Byrd Theatre

We planted a flower garden

We went to First Friday in the arts district

and were ignored by both the Mormon and Evangelical Christian solicitors on the street there

We waded in the James River

We were attacked by a territorial mocking bird

We were greeted on our first day by seven artists who helped unload our truck

We lamented the lack of acceptable espresso

We ate watermelon at the watermelon festival

We drove our new shifter car and didn't stall going into first

We did laundry in our laundry room

We took some pictures, and plan to share them here

George and Martha?

I'm sitting beside the (decorative) fireplace in our living room, looking out the window. From here, I can see our front porch, the impatiens blooming in the flowerbed framing it, and our orange hatchback parked at the curb. My husband is arranging his painting studio, which is upstairs, on the second floor of our house. The cat is bravely nosing around our backyard and the dog, well, she's napping here at my feet, but give her a break-- it's 95 degrees out and she's old.

A week ago, there was no house, there was no car, and there certainly was no porch or yard or charming woodwork or mantle pieces or time for writing and looking out windows or large studio spaces for making large scale work.

A week ago, there was Brooklyn. Today, there's Richmond. And Richmond is in Virginia, and Virginia terrifies me.

Obviously, there's nothing frightening about the scene I describe. (Except maybe the car; my feelings on the car are complicated. I should mention the bikes are here, too, and are in frequent use-- nothing scary about that.) We're enjoying space and silence we could never afford in Brooklyn. And Virginia, in itself, doesn't scare me either, though I haven't been to the DC suburbs or Virginia Beach yet. No, Virginia for me--for us I should say, husband too-- has come to mean massive life change, which, for us, means pressure's on, time to paint that series, time write that book, time to write those songs, time to study, time to open a cafe, time to get even more poor, crap, are we going to get more poor? Are we going to get sick of each other? Are we going to meet people? Are we going to get sick of them? Are we going to get sick of all the spiders and all the trees everywhere?

There are trees and spiders everywhere!

We moved here for these things, insects included. I'm back in graduate school again, again. And husband finally has the space and time to paint super big. And so, in addition to the obvious lifestyle changes, Virginia offers us these particular pressures, which, really, are exciting opportunities. It's thrilling and thrilling.

sometimes, i am.