I’m painting today, alone with Bessie Smith’s warble crackling from the record player, licking at the white walls as I straddle the space heater in the sole light, enough for the canvas, the paint and my eyes.

It is very good.  But time passes, a day and I am reminded of why I was in a pinch, and only a pinch over a month to this day (the longest night of the year) I set out for something like HAM.  To be solitary is one side of a multi-facet life, with cuts hewn in constant time.

I feel a bit lonely right now, missing those gone the ways of the compass, those gone to carve their owns ways, and those who are gone for reasons I don’t understand.

I like Bessie but she offers me more blues, as beautiful as they are, she offers little more of what I long for than do the Gmail chats and Facebook boxes and the text message chime.

Warmth.  (These blues just won’t burn…..)  A perfectly flawed smile, preferable to the FB emoticon…

But still, I know this is a place that we all are returning to.  (….But they will carry me through)