Juice

It rained here last night; real, honest-to-goodness, puddles-in-the-driveway rain. In the morning the sun landed right IN my eye at what I assume to be about 7am. I rolled away from it to the other side of the bed and slept for another hour, then I got up and went for a walk. It was perfect walking weather, a little chilly at first, but once the blood was pumping I was glad for the coolness. Quail were holding council on the telephone wire. The rain had knocked a still-green orange off of a neighbor's tree, complete with stem and layers of leaves. On my way back I picked it up, along with a tiny lemon from another neighbor, set up a little still life on the patio table and got out my paints. For a couple of hours I thought about nothing but color and shape as nature's bounty passed through my interior spaces and returned through my hands as something small and fixed.
One of my chief frustrations of late has been a need to process all the new things I am taking in, and feeling like all my creative energy was being diverted toward work, sparking the downward spiral of blame and self-pity on which I have lately been riding. Henceforth I hope to alot only some of these forces for professional use, guarding the majority for my self.