It's Official

Well, my panel approved my thesis, and I have delivered my final document to the printer, so it looks like I will be graduating this semester. Now my main problem is whether to root for University of Richmond or VCU in this weekend's basketball game.

I am really anxious to get back into a regular painting schedule, once all of our holiday preparations and travel are behind us. It's such a relief to reclaim all the time I was spending on my studies. Last night, I used my new freedom to attend a poetry reading by Piotr Sommer, a Polish author. Interestingly, some of his pieces really appealed to me because they could be compared with a written still-life. Or, maybe they captured a particular way of seeing the world that I relate to painting. Here's one I really enjoyed, from 1981-1982:

Medicine

I saw a real lemon again.
Ania brought it back from France.
She’d been wondering: come home or stay abroad?
And come to think of it, what keeps her here—
a few faces, a few words, this anxiety?
The lemon was yellow, it looked like the real thing.
You didn’t have to put it in the window
to ripen alongside our pale tomatoes.
Or as we ourselves ripen
growing up and growing yellow over years.
No, it was already entirely itself
when she brought it, not even yellow, but gold,
and a little rough,
so I took it gratefully.

I want to wrap myself in the thick skin of the world,
I want to be tart, but good-tasting—
some child swallows me reluctantly
and I help to cure his cold.

- Piotr Sommer