I Have My Knitting Again!

I'm doing a new thing or two.

I found a huge canvas in my room already mounted and painted with a base coat. It's dark brown and it's been here for a while, I can tell. There are places where the paint's been scraped off from rubbing against this or that. My room is stark white and there's a large space of wall above my bed framed by two lights. I asked Veronique, my French mother, if I could mount it above my bed. She said I could even paint on it.

That was on Sunday. Yesterday I went to the art supply store and bought red, blue, yellow, white, and black paints, and 7 brushes. And I went to town on that canvas. For three hours. What came out was a giant tree.
I can't tell if I'm done or not. But I was so excited to tell my Veronique about it. In French, of course.

And today was my first class at 8:30 a.m. and maybe I've been a bit spoiled, but that's ridiculous early. I've not had a class before 9 a.m. at UIndy. God bless the History/Poli. Sci. department.

So it's a bit of a strange life what with a crookedly shaped oblong room that's naturally got more character than than any other room I've inhabited because it's had about six or seven hundred years to shift with the earth beneath it and be reshaped and remodeled and reflexed and repainted and redecorated and re-inhabited.
I just received a suitcase I sent to myself while in Austria. Have you ever sent yourself something from the past? Its like someone knew that you wouldn't forgotten about those things, but that they were just out of mind. And they wanted them to come back into your mind when the time was right. And the time was right today.

All I want to do while here is create. I've painted. I drew today. I bought a harmonica, too. If I cannot play the bass I'll learn a more portable instrument. So it's in C and I'm gonna spend from today until June 21st learning how to play it better than poorly so that I can hopefully find people to jam with at the festival de musique! It's an entire day, starting at 4 p.m. of musicians in the streets and it lasts all night.
I'm gonna go back to that shop and try to chat with everyone there, looking for people to play with. And people to speak French to. And to befriend.

Today I had a traditional French afternoon. After class a friend and I went to a cafe and drank coffee and ate sandwiches and sat there for two hours. Which is what you're supposed to do. And then I found some Django Reindhardt players and sat and listened and drew a street lamp. And then I went to the music store and should have just stayed and chatted chatted chatted but I just wanted to get home and play. And unpack my little life that arrived in a red suitcase.

And tonight a few of us are going to Le Skat. It's a jazzy kinda club and tonight they're playing rhythm and blues.

And I caught wind of a rumor that there was swing dancing somewhere in the city. I will find it. I will wear my swing dress. I will dance. I will show these French swing dancers how an American swing dances because, after all, they can have Django cuz we have Frankie Manning.

And my French class is hard :( But! I love speaking French and my French parents are a dream.
Today my French mom and I had breakfast together and it was so delightful.