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Just knowing I have a bag of stuff with me that I hand-picked for my personal enjoyment and any emergencies I might have makes my day at work better.
After I get to work, I put my bulging satchel in the back room cubby and there it resides, looking mysterious and important, with an invisible hands-off sign on it.
Today's Contents:
1. I stuck in Mexicolor, an intriguing book that is so ultra-fab-Mexican it makes me drool. Tiles, mosaics, terracotta, ornate crucifixes, pottery, open air markets, women with baskets of roses on their heads...a lovely and colorful hands-on-eye-feasting book to break with in the midst of gray work days. And maybe it will inspire me to paint my kitchen.
2. Good Earth Tea. Yummy and warm and spicy. Fits nicely with the turquoise, red, orange juice and orange fire, fuschia, cinnamon, ultramarine, sunburst and periwinkle pics in my book. Like a feast of Fiesta Ware accompanied by the Earth's Best Tea.
3. Barry Lopez's Winter Count. I read his work and weep over the limited scope of my own. He lives upriver from me about 50 miles...I heard he talks to coyotes and wolves and only comes out to make excursions, like to the Grand Canyon.
Lopez wrote a companion essay to Paul Winter's CD, Canyon, an outdoor musical project composed ad lib by Paul and his friends, playing at sunset and dawn in the Grand Canyon. A group of artists, writers and musicians, all invited by Winter, rafted down the Colorado to gain inspiration for their art. The Bach Air which Winter plays on his flute from a cliff top is spine-chilling in its integrity and interpretation; absolutely soul-fixing. You can hear the ghosts joining in. The canyon acoustics are awesome.
4. Headset and CDs go with me most days. When I feel stressed, I either want instrumental pieces or hard rock; it's one or the other. Today, I will take Canyon with me. I do wish I had a Bose headset...the background noise in the cafeteria is distracting.
5. Of course, I have a notebook, sketchbook and a panoply of pens and pencils.
6. Back issue of The New Yorker--always something there to trigger a laugh or sarcastic glee if I need an upper. There is one person at work who might know what I'm talking about if I refer to The New Yorker. How providential.
7. Lipstick, chapstick, lip balm, (taking care of my chapstick addiction) mirror and Tylenol, Aleve, Excedrin, Calm-Downers, and cough drops. All of those pills are for giving out to needy people as well as for me.
8. Aromatherapy Ginger-Orange hand lotion. Put that on and breathe in deeply; most necessary after frequent hand washing.
9. Snacks. Nuts and dried fruit and other healthy things I plan to and may not eat. Bottled Water.
10. Dentyne Ice. Coffee Rule #1: Don't let my breath go naked after drinking morning coffee. Always cover it up with mint.
Off to work I go!
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