Today I will ignore Dorothea Brande’s admonition to keep my morning pages from prying eyes (Is it secret? Is it safe?) and publish here the words collected in bed this morning. The fact that I even put the journal and pen next to my bed last night and then used them this morning is good enough.
My back is still not one hundred percent. The problem began—what? a week ago?—all across my lower back but has since settled into the right “corner”: still my lower back, but sometimes moving down into my hip.
The blind on the window to my right covers almost the entire lower pane of the window and, above it, I can see rusts and golds and yellow-greens. Would I have the watercolors to paint the scene? Yes, but I would surely need to mix a shade or two to get it all just right.
I count four green crab apples among the top branches of the tree closest to the window. Long ago, I decided to name that tree and the other crab apple, the one in the backyard that Dennis cut down. It had a trunk ringed with holes drilled by woodpecker beaks, but the maple near the deck is in the same condition and continues to thrive. We should have simply limbed the crab apple and kept it, where it could shower the backyard with petals for a day or two each spring. Ah, well, just another regret to add to the list, which is certainly plenty long enough already.
I remember bits and pieces of the dreams I had. Strange things, and I am always surprised by those who stop by to visit in my nighttime mental movies. Well, surprised until I consider and realize that the names of most had either come up in conversation or—more likely—planted themselves in my mind in recent days.
Two leaves are left on the crab apple, there above the top of the blind. I think I would use quinacridone sienna, one of the new Daniel Smith colors I just got from Dick Blick to paint them. One would need a lighter wash than the other, and a touch of burn umber (I have three or four tubes’ worth in my palette) would possibly be the right thing to dull the sienna to the correct hue.