last year i sat on rodney's front steps & took pictures - new to the blogging world, i was determined to steal images from every event in town, sure i would have a story to tell. i don't think i used one picture. but this year i have this detail from an art piece - an altered sign. it is actually more than a detail - if you add a few more inches of different paper to the bottom, you have it all.

‘Live’.

& i have a phone call from last night in my memory, a friend sure she is wasting her life, sure she is not living - ironically, she, too, is a cancer survivor, though a different cancer - sure everyone else's lives are better, sure that just this day to day stuff she does is not life. i know what she means, or at least i know what it would mean if i said it, & i would not be quite serious, but she is. it feels to her that this career path she has chosen encircles her; she is roped in, she says, she can't get out. it is the career she chose, the career requiring years & years of schooling, degrees, a PhD., but she feels trapped, feels overworked, feels it is not worth the money she makes - which is substantial, 4 or 5 times what we could earn in a year.

she wants to move to italy or spain, where life is really led, she says, & will, in fact, spend most of her summer there, all expenses paid by her job, with nothing to do but look at paintings & sip whatever she chooses to sip at outdoor cafes, & yet, it is not enough. my heart goes out to her, but i don't have any magic to fix this - of course, the magic is all around her, but she can no longer see it. i have told her before, in moments of frustration & pettiness, & yes, jealousy, & dear Lord, i would kill for that much paid time off, but it matters not - she is miserable, she wants a life.