I’ve hurt my foot somehow. Spent the day hobbling about the boat, and painting a journal. Started this one several months ago—the flowers were yellow, the stalks were green—but decided today to completely revamp the colours. Tried to make the flowers and leaves look as though they had been carved in wood, instead.

Listened to Richard Tognetti playing Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin to get in the mood. Curly music…resinous like amber…it’s that slightly sticky sound of the bow against the strings…as though the strings were slightly furred, and the bow was gummy. Whatever. I love the way Tognetti interprets these pieces. More than Yo Yo Ma’s rendition of the same.

Reread parts of Annie Dillard‘s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and a dozen poems by Yehuda Amichai, while waiting for paint to dry.

This journal isn’t done…still very much a WIP. But I love the honey-coloured light of sunset as it slants through the portholes, this time of year, and just had take a photograph of my desk, “lagooned in gold”, as Edith Wharton put it. ▉