Judy Rushin-Knopf

264. on a cold January morning I shuffle my seed packets to get warm
265. surrendering the idea that the perfection I see in my mind is in any way attainable, while understanding that through art - whether making or consuming it - I am seeking the memory of that perfection.

263. “Like everyone else, I imagined my island as an idyllic place, a utopia…but what I found were not models of romantic, alternative ways of living, but…unsettlingly barren places whose riches lay in the multitude of terrible events that had befallen them.” Judith Schalansky 2009

259. a Downy Woodpecker at a bird feeder
260. a clean red line painted across a tattered, brown scrap of cotton
261. red twig dogwoods displaying their fiery color in the afternoon glow
262. looking up at Jupiter looking down on Earth, imagining its Great Red Spot

256. feeling superstitions kick in for old times’ sake
257. a welcome sense of urgency as I began my work today
258. the first hopeful minute of 2026, EST

251. knowing I have the option to be hungry or not
253. wondering if the brown spider in my studio, indifferent to my concerns, is afraid when transported to a new location
254. a busy mind making it difficult to read a book
255. the pleasure of wet fulling a piece of cloth

247. a family of 7 walking thru the airport in matching plaid pajamas
248. the desert night sky - my only escape from our petty human dramas
249. a year that can possibly be summed up as agorocacological
250. when you can still see the little child you once knew in the eyes of your adult kid

244. the joy of seeing your children achieve hard-earned goals
245. the heavy smell of room deodorizer in an interstate hotel room
246. a brittle wishbone as a symbol for our times

243. could you?
243. would you?

240. feet planted on wall pushing body away
241. teen lovers blush and giggle at the grunting man
242. a recent appreciation of Liz Fraser’s remarkable vocal style, but I’ve always been a late bloomer

239. a vivid dream in which a friend, seeing I am not myself, urgently rushes to me with an abstract image that resembles a pile of beads, saying “here you are!” I place my hand on the image and become myself.

235. wrapped in a cocoon of suds at the carwash
236. to be needed
237. a 10 year project completion exhibition
238. a season change marked by crisp air

234. the lice were real, Bruno said, but he had come to understand that they were also a metaphor: they stood for the transmigration of life, from one being to the next, from past to future. (Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake)

229. leaves floating downstream
230. a lifetime of misunderstanding
231. a feeling of overwhelm when driving over a damn
232. the steady hum of late night white noise
233. the angled ceilings of my attic room

227. purple petals collected in the sidewalk cracks create a tidy geometric border around a patch of grass
228. Watching a baby barely three weeks old perceive the world

222. a sticky dough of cellulose insulation, kaolin, water, and pva glue
223. a colony of ants feeding on a cicada
224. cars floating on a flooded interstate
225. the relief that cold air brings to my overheated body
226. the herbaceous smell of tomato leaves

218. a reunion
219. hundreds of dragonflies swarm above and around me
220. neighbors who have become friends
221. a sit by the river with my guy

215. a dying brown bird, warm in my hand, buried in tall grasses
216. a secret swimming hole on a hot day
217. saving teabags for Andrea Zittel

210. one hand sharing a painful truth, the other offering hope
211. a wet towel to cool a hot steering wheel
212. anxiety as object of destruction
213. three threads strung with marigolds hanging in a kitchen
214. the suddenness of a flash flood

205. a feral garden rejecting human interference
206. constant hunger as a reminder
207. a hemstitched line suspended by 500 threads
208. a body, suspended in a spiderweb, hoping for a savior
209. soaking as a form of self-soothing

Democrats Ambivalent On Trump's Possible War Despite It Being Deeply Unpopular Progressives want a vote on the president’s war powers while many Democrats are keeping quiet.

There's nothing that Congress loves more than forfeiting its warmaking powers to the president. Doing so has been a longstanding bipartisan project, and the country deserves a better opposition party than one ready to go along with an Iraq War redux. www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-...

250+ million acres of public lands eligible for sale in SENR bill The bill mandates disposal of over 2 million acres of BLM and National Forest lands; public lands eligible for sale in the bill encompass over 250 million acres, including local recreation areas, wild...

"The bill directs what is likely the largest single sale of national public lands in modern history..."

www.wilderness.org/articles/med...

200. the ubiquitous ticking in a clock repair shop
201. a child's delight in summer water play
202. the red-brown of cinnamon
203. restoring fertile soil where it has been depleted
204. a fierce wind takes an industrial door off its frame

197. in my dreams I breath under water and see through my eyelids
198. an excavated yard
199. realistic weeds made out of paper

193. my dog stranded on a paver in the middle of her hot, black, occultated yard
194. the struggle to complete a project that has dragged on for too long
195. a letter arrives, bearing the marks of its journey
196. a chin on my knee

188. the destructive capacity of nostalgia
189. magnificent flowers no bigger than pencil erasers growing on a patch of urban weeds
190. backyard to table
191. the fresh smell rain
192. a blood-clot beneath a fingernail

The Christian Nationalist Plot to Disenfranchise Women Voters The SAVE Act, which purports to fend off the phantasmal threat of voter fraud, would throw millions of women off the voting rolls.

The rumors are true: The proposed SAVE Act will make it harder, if not practically impossible, for millions of women to vote.

185. an artist who is compelled by ephemera he finds on walks
186. a lively dinner at our table with eleven beautiful neighbors
187. the full sensory experience of eating a cold navel orange on a warm night

180. a spectacular post-Seder mess deserves a spot on the Seder plate
181. a pack of dogs establishes their order
182. a sheered tree line marks the edge of a highway
183. a city of swift nests under a bridge
184. a congregation of egrets in a pine tree stand mistaken for plastic bags

176. a fence made from living branches
177. the endorphine reward from deep laughs
178. a quiet day without obligations
179. the flatulent sound of someone learning to play trumpet

173. the satisfaction of a day of housework
174. a sleepless night
175. a rubber glove against felted wool