A Brief Pause at the Edge of Becoming
It seems I am always seeking a place to sit—
not just to rest the body,
but to settle the soul.
Yet even in stillness, Gary Brecka’s words whisper:
“The quickest way to old age
is the aggressive pursuit of comfort.”
So I do not stay long.
I walked until I found a picnic table
beneath a canopy of bare-limbed trees,
branches like open hands waiting for green.
The blue spruces nearby—
stoic, unchanged, whispering that some things endure.
I sketched.
Not perfectly. Not for anyone’s praise.
Just a mark to say: I was here.
Alive in this in-between.
Waiting. Listening.
Not for leaves—
but for something truer than comfort.
Thank you for joining me in this small noticing.
A moment borrowed from the rush.
A table. A tree. A thought.
A gift.
YOU'RE MY DEADLY DEADLY NIGHTSHADE
OH ATROPA
BELLADONNA
THEY SAY YOU ARE
DEATH INCARNATE
AND I SHOULD STAY
FAR AWAY
- Blackbriar - Deadly Nightshade
I did a thingy for my mutual. Her name is Belladonna and she is DC OC. ;)
As I was drawing, I noticed how genius her design is. Her "villain" costume looks like the petals of a belladonna, her blonde hair and light skin like anthers (I belive that's how they called), her freckles like pollen. I don't know if it's inrentional, but it's amaizing!
I can't draw clothes yet
And hands
And everything
Spare me!
It's also my first time drawing flowers :D
Bork, bork, bork! The Swedish Chef is taking “fast food” to a whole new level—now with 100% more chicken anxiety. Camilla did not sign up for this Tour de Flap, but here we are. Will they reach the kitchen safely, or will this turn into an unscheduled poultry emergency? Stay tuned.
Latest from my Bikes of Amsterdam series
Mark Twain (1835–1910)
In the 1870s and ’80s, the Twain family spent their summers at Quarry Farm in New York, about two hundred miles west of their Hartford, Connecticut, home. Twain found those summers the most productive time for his literary work, especially after 1874, when the farm owners built him a small private study on the property. That same summer, Twain began writing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. His routine was simple: he would go to the study in the morning after a hearty breakfast and stay there until dinner at about 5:00. Since he skipped lunch, and since his family would not venture near the study—they would blow a horn if they needed him—he could usually work uninterruptedly for several hours. “On hot days,” he wrote to a friend, “I spread the study wide open, anchor my papers down with brickbats, and write in the midst of the hurricane, clothed in the same thin linen we make shirts of.”
Whether or not he was working, he smoked cigars constantly. One of his closest friends, the writer William Dean Howells, recalled that after a visit from Twain, “the whole house had to be aired, for he smoked all over it from breakfast to bedtime.”
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”
― Mark Twain
#dailyrituals #inktober #MarkTwain @masoncurrey
Thanks to my best friend and art teacher, I am working on this beautiful baby dragon ( names are still being brainstormed) that I have been working on in classes and art club, keep in mind it is definitely not finished but I’m excited to see how this goes! Hope you all like it, any tweaks or ideas are greatly appreciated
I know nothing of the actress of the same name (although I do need to watch The Spirit Of The Beehive someday), but the words alone had “drawing title” written all over them, so yeah!
I am an art teacher with a master’s degree—trained by brilliant professors who believed that art could do more than decorate walls. I offer safe spaces for teenagers to grow—nourishing soil where their imaginations can take root.
And yet… I am assigned to hallway duty.
This is compulsory education, after all.
So I sit—posted like a sentinel—watching young lives stream past.
“Get to class,” I say with a smile and a nudge.
The system wants attendance; I’m hungry for presence.
Armed not with a whistle or clipboard, but with a pen—
my scribble’s soft insurgency.
The hallway stretches out like a geometric hymn.
Columns and corners chant structure.
Teenagers swirl past—half-formed galaxies of limbs and laughter—
their orbits chaotic, their gravity pulling time forward.
I begin to draw.
Not their tardiness, but their motion.
A shoulder. A blur of sneakers.
A tilted head chasing freedom.
Feet flickering like seconds.
Each mark a pulse.
Each smudge a breath.
My paper becomes a seismograph of seeing—
trembling gently through the mundane.
This isn’t about making art for a frame or a feed.
It’s about refusing to leak away in the fluorescent hum of obligation.
It’s a quiet mutiny against the clock.
I do this on long car rides, too (passenger side, mind you).
Letting the lines grow wild, jagged, and unapologetic.
Not for polish—
but for presence.
This is how I remember I’m still alive.
Still growing.
Still watching.
Still choosing to see.
Because sometimes mental health looks like
a piece of scrap paper,
a moving pen,
and the simple, sacred act of
marking time with wonder.
Even with the wheel well and truly turning for the Beltane Fire Festival again, there’s still time for me to start a new sketchbook! Introducing “It Is What It Was” :-)
