Chasing Lightning Bugs Studio Blog

the nights are colder now.  we try to keep the cats in. although they aren't quite sure they want to stay in.  edgar has a morning walk and a few outings into the yard throughout the day, but is happiest on his couch in the warmth of the living room now.  
and the literary quilts are humming along.  i keep making them.  and they are beginning to leave the studio as well.   pip has a new home.  as does mr. rochester.  today i concluded 'great expectations' and have moved along to 'jude the obscure'.  oh, thomas hardy! he is one of my favorites.  i read him as a girl and his characters are like ghostly siblings for me.  i wonder what sort of quilts we will dredge up together.
revisiting the books that carried me through the dark and cold nights of my girlhood, has taken me to those days in my mind more than usual.  there was no tv in our house and we were far from people in general, much less other kids my age. so i was a child who would read and re-read, tumbling into books, keeping characters in my head, and filling my head with the interior spaces of a manor house or a humble drafty farm.  i know my aesthetic was shaped by the images the words formed for me. 
so the month of november that sits between the fiery beauty of october and the busy excitement of christmas, has carried me back to the classic literature of my youth.