A clock can only go so far. Memory is fleeting and mutable. A calendar, a journal, a snapshot–these mnemonic devices all tickle and tease us into a semblance of attentiveness to the passing of the hours and the effects they have on us and our spheres of existence. Only in the arts, perhaps, do we find a deeper and truer conduit to allow us to fully sense our place in time and how we experience it, now and over time. We are immersed in the moment in a more piquant and provocative way, making a more spiritual connection perhaps, with our past, present and future, when we sing and dance, listen and look, paint and write, tell our tales and learn from those that our fellow-travelers tell.

So I return to an old-friend medium (or two), come back to the antiquated techniques that only burnish with age and use. I begin again to write with greater dedication and fervor. I open clean new leaves of a sketchbook to mark up with the passage of this time.

. . . and the ewer is full again--perhaps with promise . . .

Now that I will be listening in on weekly choir rehearsals again, I have both an artful background to and the time for practicing my ways of recording and interpreting my own passage through time and space. It seemed appropriate to start off this easeful regimen last night, then, with a particularly traditional and foundational study in graphite of texture, shape, value, and so forth, and to mark quite literally where I am after a hiatus of some months from super-regular drawing work.

It feels good to get the creaky hands wrapped around a pencil in this way again. Helps me feel anchored in my place on the continuum I suppose. And I take comfort in doing this little bit to stanch the flow of time unmarked–to make it mine for just this nth of history, then let it go again to sweep toward when I will next choose to prick it into place with this small graphite flagpole that I plant to make it mine.