YEAR: 2020
START DATE: February 17, 2020
END DATE: March 29, 2020

Great Blossoming. Intended to be about the blossoming of 29 Pieces—from origin to idea to the blossoming of the beginning of our 15-year anniversary. We were going to take 29 Pieces of cake, pizza, or pie to friends of the organization. But then, within a few weeks of the inception of the journal, COVID-19 was in the news. By mid-March, Kelly had his ankle replacement, and we were in full lockdown—amid the great blossoming of a terrible pandemic that would go on to kill millions of people. Seeds. Good and bad. Shit. Shitstorm. Garden metaphors. How beauty grows through shit. The lotus blossom story. All kinds of shit. The viral pandemic brewing and spreading—at first, we didn’t know, and then we knew. Care and feeding of another human being. Kelly’s ankle surgery. Chirpy plans for Kelly-care while the pandemic spreads, but I am not yet aware. Trip to Lincoln, NE to talk to UNL about the possibility of a project with the library. Impressions, frustrations. Phoebe Little is admitted to Yale. I was at Shelley’s (her mom, Shelley Thornton) when Phoebe got the email letter. Where there is big blossoming, there are big weeds. The spreading catastrophic weed of COVID-19. Seeds and weeds—and is it a flower or a weed? The coronavirus genome. Even the darkness is not too dark. Recalibrating from darkness. Kelly care post-surgery. Joys of reading. Lynda II Gordon — Lives Like Loaded Guns (Emily Dickinson bio). Lockdown struggles. COVID-19—the shit and the blossoming. Daily walks and photography in the neighborhood. No wild nights, wild nights, but grey days, grey days. Unraveling of 2020. The meditation group and disruption therein. Tips for an artist on how to make money and stay true to your vision and ethics. What to do when life as we knew it may come to an end? The growth cycle for 29 Pieces—a seed and a pandemic virus. What grows in the wake of a shitstorm? What are the components of “strong”? The tribal way. What country do I claim? More shit than we imagined has hit the fan. Will there be seeds of something better? Art from pandemics past. Contact in the time of COVID-19. Yet some hold steady, hold compassion. Back cover: Are there acceptable and unacceptable sources of inspiration? (I did this because of criticism of Hilma af Klint for her inspiration derived from spirit.) The volcano blew.

Trip to Lincoln, NE to talk to the library; visit with Kelly’s mom in Omaha; 15-year anniversary of 29 Pieces.

I set out to do a celebratory recounting of the evolution of 29 Pieces: The Great Blossoming. Then the pandemic. At first, there were bits in the news, then flat-out fear and total lockdown of all non-essential businesses. Thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people dead. New York City in nightmare scenarios. Kelly had very complicated ankle replacement surgery, and I took care of him. This journal was processing the chaotic spread of the virus.

Trust for Public Land Cool Schools Project. We were planning huge public workshops—and all that got canceled. For a number of weeks, we were in limbo, with uncertainty as to how to proceed on any front. I read a lot and turned to the journal.