Rain/Sun/Rain/Sun...

Yep, it's fall. We've probably had more rain in the last 24 hours than we had in all of September. It feels odd to have water falling from the sky. And of course it's coming too late to do anything for our poor vegetables and flowers. Ah, well, there's always next year.

October 1--Vincent van Gogh, Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin. Everyone in town knew Joseph the postman whose route spanned the artists' quarter in Amsterdam. You might say Joseph was a kind of chameleon; he could fit in with any sort of people. He was proper and polite with the penurious old women who lived in the garden apartments and lurked in their doorways with plates of stale cookies and cups of weak tea for him, in hopes of inducing him to stop for a visit. Joseph was coarse and profane with the young workingmen who lounged at the entrance to their shops wearing the grease and dirt of their professions like badges. He was solicitous of the elderly, charming to mothers with small children, and respectful to all, a true chameleon who blended in but never really fit in.

It's kind of what I had in mind when I began but not really. I should take another run at this one some day.

October 2--Egyptian 18th Dynasty, Scarab pectoral, from the Tomb of Tutankhamun. It was heavy to wear on his thin boy's chest. The weight of it made the thing dig into his neck and shoulders. He plucked at it, tugged it this way and that, hoping to find a spot where it felt easy on him. He looked down at it there, the heavy gold of the setting, the vivid colors of the stones carefully carved by artists to fit into the section shaped like feather around the central figure of the humble scarab. No one who lived in Egypt doubted that there was a scarab beetle in the sky who rolled the ball of the sun from horizon to horizon. They saw the industrious insects in the stableyards and city streets rolling dung balls away. They were efficient and undeterred by obstacles, the perfect model for the eternal motion of Khepri renewing the sun every day. The Boy King felt the weight that Khepri must feel when he wore the pectoral. He would lean back and feel the pressure on his lungs, think about how it would be to lie for all eternity with that lapis lazuli beetle nestled on his body, holding him in place in his tomb.

Such a beautiful piece of jewelry. I often wear a scarab, especially to work, just in case the Egyptians were correct and a god shaped like one is in charge of rolling the sun across the sky.
--Barbara