A Walk A Walk

Or as you pronounce it 'awah-awah'.

Right now it's in your top five words and phrases along with 'Dahnnn!!' (down)

which of course allows you to awah-awah.

Today you referred to Grandma as 'Mum-Mum', which may just stick.

She's probably in the air by now

and my heart is going to ache when you awaken from your nap and ask for her,

curious as to where your new and wonderful companion has gone.

I will tell you that she went home and that we'll fly to see her in just a few short weeks

and you'll nod or stare and ask for more rice cakes or strawberries.

Ten minutes later you'll repeat the question and so on and so forth until you loosen your grasp on the mystery.

You may wonder why your mama is slower today than she's been in the last week

or where all the conversation has gone

but I could never explain to you now or maybe ever

why saying goodbye to a loved one is so hard

about getting older or mortality or any number of things that make life what it is

in its fullness.

Existential stuff that you'll cover in A.P. English 

but never begin to grasp until you're older.

Or maybe you'll be just like me

and on a summer evening when you're seven or so you'll sit on the back porch with me

and look at my hands, suddenly and horribly realizing that someday they'll look older,

that I will get older.

If you're anything like your old lady you'll freeze the moment

forever in your gorgeous brain, what I wore, the temperature of the air, the crickets

and the watermelon rinds on a brown and mustard-yellow ringed dish.

Maybe it will define the way you see the world as it did for me,

the constant urge to capture and celebrate the beautiful now

that blooms like a deafening and constant flower

somewhere deep in the fabric of the cosmos

or maybe you'll fly through your years without the heaviness of such creative

sensitivity, awash in numbers of sports equipment or chess pieces.

I cannot think one is better than the other, except that other options might be a lot less...aching.

Your mama aches an awful lot in the best and worst ways.

I ache

When I look at you

or your handsome Daddy

or my own parents

sister

friends

felines

Time of late has been flying for me

though it has not even begun to fly for you:

I suspect growing bones and teeth and motor skills is arduous work

that adults would resist and bemoan.

I think there is so much bravery in being a baby.

After all these years of being a daughter

I am still somebody's baby: can you imagine that?

The very same hands that guided your stomps and steps this morning

did the same thing with me when I was small.

We are so lucky to know her, baby boy,

so lucky to be of her tribe.

I suspect by the way she made you smile that you already know this, that there are certain things that don't need to be taught to be understood.

xoxox,

Mama

Delicate Cycle Six.

A Little Grace Dangles.

Asymmetrical, American Turquoise

Copper

Sterling

.

Both Sides Now Necklace.

Amethyst

Pressed Sea Plants vintage 2011

Sterling and fine silvers

.

Dragonfly wing swing bail

moving parts

.

Enameled Maidenhair Fern Frond Earrings

Rhodochrosite asymmetrical in dome height

fronds asymmetrical in number and length

fir fronds pressed into the sterling of the earrings

gorgeous ombre fade of the fronds

Jacaranda and amazonite double dangles

sterling chain connecting

pillow undulations

stunning patina

hammered edges

sterling ear wires

.

RESERVED

Short Jacaranda Ring Dangles

sterling connection

hammered texture

gorgeous patina

gently domed brass

.

This wonderful group of delicate lovely pieces will be in the 

Metal Shop

tomorrow.

Please feel free to contact me for reserve information.

xoxoxo,

A

Ooof.

I had an appointment this morning with our pediatrician

whom I adore so much.

When we arrived I noticed that Orion was signed up to see someone else, a lovely male doctor (ours is a young woman, younger than me) who told me the news with tears in his eyes

that the woman who has been our baby's link to all things health since his birth

has been diagnosed with a cancer that she will not recover from.

That she is closing her practice to be with her two very young sons and her family.

I think of her warm, kind eyes and I cry.

.

Remember that post I wrote here?

A friend told me not to be too proud to ask that it be so, that my mother come to see us

and without those words of hard-won wisdom I would have not blurted "now!"

when the woman who made me asked, "When should I come?"

She will be here tomorrow night very late.

She intends to be of great service

by helping

but honestly

I just want to look at her

and drink in the moments

because everything feels so darn fragile these days

like a loose weave spiderweb sweater

.

I just want to find good brioche with her,

watch her watch Orion's amazing little personhood

note and ignore where we've both aged

and appreciate the season of our lives.

My heart is busy beating prayers for our Good Doctor.

I cannot imagine the weight that a terrible prognosis brings

nor the choices that must be made.

I just trust that she is lifted by those around her

and made whole by love

which is our only true resting place.

Oh friends,

may we all live live live live LIVE the fuck out of life

until we are parted from it.

Don't waste another moment.

xoxox,

Sunny

I Am a Fish.

Tides I trust and ride.

I move

slip

shine

and surrender.

There is no opportunity for wastefulness being a fish:

there is survival

and play

and rest.

Life is streamlined quick and beautiful.

We live in the deep blue

and die there, too.

you would call the existence of ours

'simple'

in your rushing and plans

but I would say you've lots to learn from such beings

celebrating busyness as you do

and suffering for it in the worst most debilitating ways

.

Perhaps it would be nice to be reminded when you glance at your lovely wrist

to glide on this moment as you might a wave

as if you had fins

and scales

and an ocean in which to dance them.

To move with purpose.

Perhaps a slip of Sleeping Beauty Turquoise hugged lovingly in fine silver and copper

might help open a channel 

I could dart through with my beautiful scale symmetry

to invite meditation

and contemplation

into your harried.

To breathe

and adventure

and be in your skin

with the grace of something wild

and at peace.

I am a fish.

Tooled leather Fish Scale cuff.

Fits a 6-6.25 inch wrist perfectly.

Inlaid Sleeping Beauty Turquoise.

Double nickel snaps.

Rich early spectrum colors

lovingly and painstakingly dyed and painted and antiqued.

HERE

later this evening.

xoxoxo,

Sunny

Asteroid Orphan

The most magnificent stone I've ever cabbed

the likes of which I'll not see again:

a Moctezuma Agate of such depth it boggles the eye.

Butter yellow

cream clouds

deeper and deeper green the further down the banding goes...

given a high high high dome on my wheels

and a starry shine

in a celestial setting

that echoes the big magnificence of a wandering field.

It remains to be sized, an orphan.

Beautiful, delicate, strong and very much of the heavens.

HERE

xoxox,

Sunny

Bubbles and My Boy

This kid.

This kid with his blond mop of curls

and dogged determination to always have just one more grape.

Master of complicated gibberish that ends with a sweep of the voice to a higher octave like a bird

whose faces are no longer parroting but his own take on smiles

laughter, misery and complaint...

This kid with my heart in his sweaty palm,

bubble soap landing like lace between strands of peach.

Who daily wakes me with an impatient tug on my shoulder

and points at a pile of books he might peruse while we wipe the sleep from our eyes

reading them to himself

singsong

laughing at his own storytelling

and tossing them indiscriminately about the bed and floor

with surprising strength for six a.m...

This boy testing the limits of 'no' and curating a constant verbal wish list

of Elmo and walks and his best friend Nathaniel and rice cakes and showers with Daddy

and one more reading of Fox in Socks...

this baby who is no longer baby at all, really, but a small human conducting ten thousand important experiments a day that counted together determine his relationship with the world

the mathematics of the soul.

This imp

who wriggles from my grasp and points to the horizon like a thousand explorers before him

who keeps me on my toes

and yet gives me graces like he gives kisses,

generously and with lots of slobber...

who hates naps and loves strawberries

who gives my life double the meaning it once had...

This one is mine.

.

xoxox,

Allison

Sweetness Upon Sweetness

Today the babysitter came for the third time this week, unheard of luxury!!

I took the full five hours in the studio to play

and listen to music

and sing

(and dance)

I made what pleased me wholeheartedly

and found so much joy in the making.

I played with texture

and the layering of texture

and the translation of some things I've been thinking about lately

into the metals

I palmed

and struck.

I thought about the nature of renewal and how love fit in with that, humming

one of my favorite songs

that tied itself in to the work.

In a manner of speaking

a sentence became a paragraph

in three shallow golden brass bowls.

When the clock struck six I eagerly flew out of the studio

and scooped up my son and gobbled him up.

Whole.

I have the weekend ahead to work on sketches for some of the custom spots I created a few weeks ago

and to gently encourage the rhythm that's been established these last weeks.

Work

Rest

Enjoyment

Friendship

Clearing

Facilitating

Requesting

Repeat

.

The Metal Shop

holds the

joyful and juicy fruits of my labors 

every atom brimming with something special

and nourishing.

Friend, I hope your weekend holds something really good for you.

Good food, good company even if it's just your own counsel you keep.

May it be sweet to you.

xoxox,

Sunny

Holy She-Wolf Hobo Bag

One day too many months ago to remember I had a vision

of what to do with this magnificent bubblegum pink hide I'd been hoarding for years.

I cocked my head as the muse went on and on about this idea like

"Wait, WHAT? A white wolf that had just eaten a deer? Freshly eaten a deer?"

I don't think it was an accident that this came around the time that I was feeling

more myself again post-baby

and that beyond the wellness I was discovering a huge untapped spring of internal power
that shocked me 

.

I shrugged happily and got down to it.

Getting down to it can take months and months these days

because in between 'ah ha!' and 'finit!' there are a lot of dirty diapers

and milestones and tears and drooling and love sweet sweet love.

My son: I am so undone by him in the best of ways.

.

I could easily digress (he is like a fount of growth and fun these days more so than ever before just like all my mama friends said he'd be with each passing week) but I want to share this with you because it's been exciting.

Life-affirming, even!

Punch by punch, hammer tap by hammer tap I've come to the end of the line.

Over the miserable twin humps of a swollen joint and the emergence of carpal tunnel shit

I have carefully and judiciously tapped and punched and stitched.

All that's left are more stitching, riveting and one last complete piece to construct; the top closure of the huge hobo.

I cannot explain what came over me the night I painted the deer's blood on my wolf's beautiful muzzle and snout.

I'd known that was part of the deal the whole time, but when I dipped my brush into the red bottle something inside me quickened.

Something thrilled!

All I wanted to do was shed my clothes and go howl.

Was it a full moon?

I think in our artistry we find the keys to the inner workings of our spirit if we listen closely,

and when the inspiration asks us to go beyond beautiful to interesting or gut

well....

it's a whole new place to explore.

My wolf: she's satiated.

She's wild.

She's all animal grace and mortality.

No tomorrow is promised to her.

She pulls me towards these parts of my own psyche as much as I tooled her into the physical...

our work and our worlds feed each other.

.

The completion (or near-completion currently) of this whole concept

says something very encouraging about my relationship to the work I do.

It called

I listened

in spite of my tame little urban heart

in spite of my head-scratching over the combination of bubblegum pink and fresh blood

Here these things are, trusting me to complete them as I trusted them to remain clear

and they bear with my other formidable responsibilities

like the song that writes itself while you're in the shower

and you think..."hold on just hold on for goodness sake"

and

it does.

Here's to listening more.

Maybe it requires a bit of unplugging

but as I witness the physicalization of what so patiently waited to BE

and then became itself

I for one am happily schooled.

I'm all ears!

xoxox,

Sunny