Taking a Stand

Each week in art school we would draw from a live nude model. There were simple wooden easels that filled the room holding our large newsprint pads and a few horses; benches you straddled with the drawing pad hooked against a few half dowels so it wouldn't slide. I hated to sit and never once used the horse. I felt like I needed my whole body to see the model. It was intense and exhausting and I would sneak out after a few hours and bicycle home to my tiny apartment a few neighborhoods away and walk my big dog Travis and then make chicken soup. The point of this story is I had to stand. I required it to think.

Years ago my husband set up his computer monitor by mounting it on the top of his desk which was formerly an upright piano. It was at eye level. "I can't sit," he said. A few years ago I decided to try this too. I love to work standing. I stand to play my sax. I stand to paint I stand to read and write. But I do sit to write letters on paper. When my eyes flutter shut I take a nap.

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