Remember spelling bees? When we were taught that knowing the CORRECT spelling of things was one of the world's great skills? The competition, the drama, the suspense. i remember asking and asking for the word jewelry to be repeated...because as a voracious reader, my memory also held the word in its British version, jewellery. WRONG!

i'm so glad that texting has loosened up our spelling again, offering creativity to our simple daily exchanges. Lewis and Clark expressed in their various spellings the myriad ways that the West of this continent opened their eyes to so many plants, creatures, cultures.

Yesterday i took a potter friend out for a loop through the mountain colors. So many shades of red and orange and yellow, with all the shades of green still working their contrasts among them. The swirl of variety energized us in some inexplicable way, and as usual i found myself trying to inhale that vibrancy, sucking it deep into every cell.

As the nights lengthen, i've been doing the same with my reading. From Dinaw Mengestu (All the Beautiful Things Heaven Can Bear) to Ali Smith (How to Be Both) to Thomas King (Medicine River), Patrick Lawler (The Meaning of If), John Gardner (Grendel). Narrative voices that range from snarky to 15th century artisanal, poetic, purposefully disjointed, sharply wry. Voices that encourage a variety in how i approach my own work--that allow for experiments in creative XtaC.