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because of drawing them      and because of eating them every day,    i look more.   and so….i see more.

 


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the flowers become seed pods!!!!……duh,  grace…..

 

 


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do you see anything different?

 


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looking back

 


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and back even more

Patty,  Listen to the Road,  roadlistening.blogspot…..her post today.   She re~found  Dark-Mountain.net.    I remembered,  way back in Spirit Cloth days,  Rima Stains  Hedgespoken.   some how Dark-Mountain Project arose then….and i looked,  but couldn't go there.   I wanted a different outcome.   I wanted to walk on the sunny side.   Not wanting to go there,  way back then,  but there is where we are.  We're here/there.    Go look.  I won't say anything here,  right now,  need to go read there a while.  But you might go read there a while too.  

Today was my once a week drive into town…groceries,  post office,  and today the Feed store.   I reviewed what i know.  Hands away from face.   3ft courtesy.  hand sanitizer.    There was a bottle in the bathroom from Alyssia.   She and the kids use it.   I took it with me.   Came home and wash hands with soap through 3 Happy Birthdays.  Ok.  

I stopped first at my local Lakeside Grocery,  down there at the corner.   I buy mushrooms there.   they're always fresh.  ?   I asked Chris,  my favorite cashier who i would now call a friend,   i asked her how she's doing.  Told her that i'd thought about her…how she stands there,  at her work station 8 hrs,  5 days a week,  facing whatever presents.   I told her i wanted to thank her for that…..that it matters to me.   That finding her there has been a touchstone for me since moving here.   We pack all manner of conversation into the few moments it takes to ring my stuff up and if there's no one else in line,  we go on.   Conversations with her in the beginning helped me remember who i was in such a new and different world.    So i told her i appreciated her standing there.   That if something went wrong and she couldn't be there,   that she has my phone number….they enter it for a frequent shopper discount…she memorizes them.  Not just mine,  everybodys.  Got a mind for numbers…..and that she should CALL if she might need anything and i would see to it that either Jenny or Alyssia would get it to her.  She lives in Berry Creek…a ways up the mountains.  She got all misty eyed and said that earlier that morning a customer had gotten all angry and loud because she saw her wipe her  "stuff"  with Lysol Wipes , was extremely offended and told her she was crazy and shouldn't be working there.   We said…..hug hug.    I went off  to the big grocery in town,  to the post office where she still had Frog Stamps,  and on to the feed store.   Sanitizing between stops.   It was business as usual in Oroville California.  LESS business than usual,  but, still.  I read a NYT article about Italy now and the response to the shutdown…this sentence…."they shed their nonchalance and holed up with a mission."

What will Americans do?

 

 

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21 responses to “slowly being turned”

  1. jaime Avatar
    jaime

    I am honored to know you Grace. Please stay well.

    Like

  2. Joanne Avatar
    Joanne

    So far, here in Maine, we observe the 3 feet and we give each other space. We wait for the other person to get their sanitizing wipe from the dispenser. Wipe the grocery cart handle. Our hands. There is no hurry hurry anymore. We wait.

    Like

  3. Mo Crow Avatar

    love seeing your drawings, Martin Shaw’ spins a good yarn, read “Scatterlings” last year.

    Like

  4. jude Avatar

    I see more integration of figure and surroundings.
    Many wearing masks here.
    But there is a calm.

    Like

  5. Patty M Avatar

    I went out yesterday and had a birthday lunch at our pizza place. The owner, who long ago shared his ‘gravy’ recipe with me, and I fist bumped goodbye. He’s old, I’m old, we’re careful. This all feels
    unreal like a bad movie – until it isn’t. Not going to the darkness but not ignoring shadows, either.

    Like

  6. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Hopefully most Americans will follow your example of kindness. To read of your kindness in telling Chris, someone who stands there day in and day out, providing important and great customer service, to tell her that you and your family are here for her, is a good example for us all to follow.
    Night after night I would watch on the TV, the map of the US, with state after state having the virus and New Mexico surrounded by these states but having no virus. It was so starling but yesterday, that all changed:
    Governor Lujan Grisham has declared a public health emergency in New Mexico because so far today,4 tested positive for the virus: 2 in Socorro County, 1 in Bernalillo county and 1 in Santa Fe- all due to travel, Egypt and New York. 129 tested so far, no signs yet of community spread.
    We have 2400 test kits, certainly not enough for the population here and they are trying to set up drive through testing units in Gallup, on some of the reservations, etc. NM Dept of Health is trying to make sure we have enough respirators, equipment etc. It has even been suggested that we don’t go to our Dr if we feel we have symptoms but first call an emergency hotline to the NM Dept of Health. As you can imagine many stores here, as of yesterday, are out of disinfectants and hand sanitizers. People when panicked tend to hoard, even before we had cases here.
    Lots of events cancelled but the most poignant is the Gathering of Nations, largest PowWow in US, over 50 US tribes and over 200 tribes from Canada, supposed to happen next month, now postponed…it has bee suggested that New Mexicans curtail their travel out of state for the rest of the month.
    Neighbor next door, knocked on door and said he would use his leaf blower to remove all the leaves by our front door, side yard, front yard etc. Tried to tell him that I would rake up and use in compost (cause I don’t like leaf blowers even though I did not tell him this) but he said no, for me to save my energy…he works as an LVN and this is his way of helping, of spreading kindness in this time of chaos and uncertainty.
    Small acts, huge meaning and impact, this is what we do.

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  7. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    correction: re Gathering of Nations, should read over 500 US tribes not 50.

    Like

  8. Liz A Avatar

    I remember, with tears in my eyes, how we the people became kinder and gentler after 9/11 … remember thinking then that we had discovered our better selves and would choose to stay that way … and then not
    I am rethinking everything … trips to see grandchildren in Missouri, cataract surgery, stocking up …
    and creating has taken on a new urgency … how much time do we really have, after all?
    Looking at the first two images again, after writing this, I wonder … is the shadow a warm shawl over her shoulders or an ominous cloud?

    Like

  9. Acey Avatar

    I respect you so much for being honest about your former blind-side and how important it was to your sense of ongoing equilibrium.
    wish more would do that. And maybe even wake all the way up to the possibility to changing their life approach as you are doing by simply changing the frame of parameters of what you define as mindfulness.

    Like

  10. Peggy McG Avatar
    Peggy McG

    Here in the desert near Dome Rock Mountains just outside Quartzsite AZ the nomadic camp i am with is like family and we had a good conversation around the campfire last night as to how we will stay safe as we each individually run to many small cities around us to do errands.. if one camper is going in for groceries we ask others what we can pick up.. we let each other know of any sick like symptoms.. we sanitize more closely than most people would do just because we dont have running water and are so much more careful to be cleaner. I am not looking forward to running up to Lake Havasu City to pick up meds at the pharmacy today.
    grace, your art is magical.

    Like

  11. Linda Avatar
    Linda

    well, I live in Seattle. It is getting very strange here. Libraries closed yesterday!! My comfort place. Schools, restaurants and most places. There is no sanitizer or wipes here. Social isolation is the norm now. we talk to the neighbors at a distance. I have read all the apocalypse books for fun over the years and I feel like I am living in one now. Sad and scary. Trump is not helping by example or as a leader. What a joke to have when we need someone strong.
    I love your drawings Grace and hope you keep posting them.
    I also loved your conversation with the clerk at store. Kindness is what is needed more than ever.

    Like

  12. grace Forrest Avatar

    i am only me because you know me

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  13. grace Forrest Avatar

    this is a good thing…no hurry anymore

    Like

  14. grace Forrest Avatar

    don’t know that, will look

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  15. grace Forrest Avatar

    nothing of that here, and we are California

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  16. grace Forrest Avatar

    it’s strange….tho for me, only online so far. Here,
    in my small world, it looks much the same and i think
    about that…we are California. ?????
    it IS unreal, surreal, how things can change so radically. How, really, i think i might be dead in a few weeks. From a
    virus…?????
    i think we have to face the dark. And shadows are our
    friends.

    Like

  17. grace Forrest Avatar

    we have killed them before, the Tribes.
    your neighbor…i am glad. So glad you let him blow
    leaves. it is kindness to him and kindness counts

    Like

  18. grace Forrest Avatar

    we may have no time

    Like

  19. grace Forrest Avatar

    yes. changing the frame. Yes.

    Like

  20. grace Forrest Avatar

    Peggy…i am so so so glad to get word.
    i think of you so often.

    Like

  21. grace Forrest Avatar

    libraries.
    it’s really SOME THING
    i wonder what will be made of it once the PEAK has
    arrived?????

    Like

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