The blurred pages of 2022

It's fitting that the current book I'm reading, the last of the year at No. 48 in my book log,  is "Why Time Flies, A Mostly Scientific Investigation"  by Alan Burdock, non-fiction, about the nature of time in our lives and history. 

I usually wrap up my year's reading in December on this blog, but time did blur in my life, and with it, the urge to write and blog. Even the blog suffered, with two full months devoid of posts after the computer crashed

By the "time" I wanted to write, the year was gone. By comparison,  there were 54 in 2021, 49 in 2020, and 34 in 2019But here are the books I read, or started and didn't finish from 2022. Total 48. 

Finished Dec. 31, Now rereading

 Spiritual, Religious--8: Falling Upward and   Breathing Under Water, Rohr; and six by Thomas Merton--Finished Dec. 31--A Year With Thomas Merton, daily thoughts, meditations and more from his journals; and When the Trees Say Nothing, Dialogues With Silence, The Interior Life, Monastic Tributes to Merton, Zen and The Birds of Appetite and The Sign of Jonas.

  Poetry--8: Call Us What We Carry, Gorman; Poetry of Remembrance,  Romero; The Leaf and the Cloud, Oliver; Chaco Trilogy, Price; Earth Keepers, Momaday; American Primitive, Oliver; The Potter's Book, Mulcahhy; Kerry Slides, Muldoon.

 Art, Creativity--6; The Gift, Hyde, read most of it;   How to Paint with a Knife; How to Paint Fast, Mollica; Atmospheric Landscapes in Acrylic,  Scarbe; Winslow Homer, Crosscurrents; Paint Alchemy, Oliver,, scanned.

Non-Fiction--13 (including Time Flies): The Writers Map, Lewis-Jones ed.; Greatest Bear Run Ever, Donahue; Desert Solitaire, Abbey (reread);Atlas of Irish History, Duffy; Landscapes of Ireland, Diggin; Sacred Places, Goesty; When Humans Nearly Vanished, Prothero; Road to Rainy Mountain, Momaday; Beatty's Cabin, Barker (Pecos Wilderness, N.M.); Valley of the Shining Stone, Polng-Kemps (Abiquiu, N.M.); The Scotch Irish, Leyburn (unfinished; Burn After Writing, Jones, unfinished; Lone Star, Fehrenback (Texas history  before revisionists took over).

Fiction--7: Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury, reread; Mr. Gone, Triplett; Dune, Herbert; Hell and Back, Johnson (Longmire); Tomorrow, Jospeh Conrad; Fairy Tale, King, in progress; The Little Prince, Saint Exupery.

Self-Help: 2: Memory Guide, Restock; Don't Feed the Monkey Mind, Shannon.

Resource, won't finish but keep--1:Oklahoma Native Plants, Scothorn,

Won't even try to finish--1; Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Hardy. Thought I wanted to read a class. Not after one chapter.

"Let There Be Light"

"let There Be Light," 6 x 6 acrylic on gallery-wrapped canvas

In the beginning...it was a very busy time. Still is, especially it seems to me in the beginning of a new year...so much to do.

I don't make resolutions, but have goals, like a long "to do" list...of a new year, that can be attempted or checked off.  One of last year's was "Don't piddle, paint." Alas, there was still too much piddling.

This year, I will try to paint daily, put some paint on something almost every day, whether complete or not, whether in minutes or hours.  And the way I paint is often an interruption between episodes of thinking and evaluating.

But at a beginning of a new year, the idea of one more black and white painting came to mind, for our January member show at  In Your Eye Studio and Gallery in Paseo Arts District.

"Let There Be Light," the first painting of 2023, resulted, palette knives and brushes.