For the Archives

Posted on January 7, 2014 by Jessica Dofflemyer

Under the Hood

A mechanic and two of his assistants arrive at the front door of my dream, somewhere between the snooze button and waking.

In the end, there was no issue with car except for some melting ice cream sandwiches in the back seat.

But there was that Black Hills gold ring I was gifted back in high school. The Bohemian pulled it from the jewelry box and showed the mechanic the broken, inlaid leaf.

The mechanic says we can see the artist that made the ring if we look closely at the underside. I use my camera at the macro setting and zoom to reveal the smallest sketching in the gold. A hidden, miniature world is revealed, detailing a palm tree, a man, and the name Bruce Piston.

We are grateful to the mechanic and friends for their assistance and pay them something for their time, happy it’s not a hefty repair bill. We walk them to the door and say goodbye.

I wake, turn off the snooze setting, and rise.

I think we should all know what drives us, but I’ll admit that I have to refresh my memory on exactly what a piston does beneath the hood.

If I understand correctly, it’s a shaft that exerts force inside a cylinder, which ultimately creates a combustion that powers the vehicle. Piston rings (hmmm…) are seals that keep the shaft and cylinder lubricated in their motion.

Melting ice cream sandwiches, a Black Hills gold ring, false alarm on a car repair, and the miniature world of a dreamtime artist named Bruce. These are the threads, loose and scattered, that have yet to be woven to any neat conclusion or meaning.

That can be the welcome relief of dreams. And I love it that way.

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Jessica Dofflemyer · 6 Comments

The Best Things in Life…A Free Book for You

With recent holidays behind us, the gift giving may have settled and many of us may be on to thank-you cards. I’d like to offer up a combination of the two.

Inspired by the spirit of giving, and offering this with a gratitude to every person that has taken time to pause here at the Archives, I am happy to give everyone a chance to download my book for free.

“Volume 1: Love and Motherhood” is the first in a series that began here at For the Archives. It’s a collection of 33 posts and 15 original photographs, compiled from my first year of writing on the blog.

For those of you keeping up with the story as it’s been unfolding, that was over three years and 750 posts ago. I was a single mother with a six-year old. There was no Bohemian in my life yet. Just Lego guys, a good dose of loneliness, and an optimism to find some magic in the everyday routine. I was trying to scrape together enough money for rent, and waking at 4am to jot down prose. I was typing out words about sorting my ‘junk drawer,’ playing Foursquare with my son, and seeking the silver lining in a broken heart.

The book has been available through Amazon since October and for the next three days you can download it for free.

Looking back to when I began For the Archives, I am reminded of the intention I had to start sharing my words with the world. I wasn’t sure (and still, sometimes, am not) if my perspective mattered. But I felt strongly that there was beauty in the process of expressing my experience, no matter how simple or mundane. That, somehow, found within that sharing, was a gold that had the ability to lift the ordinary into the profound.

Further, it was my hope, that if someone read my recounting, they too, would be inspired to see the world around them – in all of its seeming ordinariness – and find a sparkle of magic. And that through that heightened perspective, they also would be encouraged to express themselves with their own, unique art form.

We are all artists creating our life’s masterpiece.

This book is a reflection of that first year when I took a chance to share my little creation-in-the-making with whoever wanted to see it.

So feel free and take it. If you like, share it with a friend.

From today until January 9th I’m giving it away.

And stay tuned. I’m working on Volume 2, soon to be released. It’s the love story of when the Bohemian entered stage right.

Gratitude and gifts…Enjoy!

PS Anyone can read an e-book even if you don’t have a Kindle device. Amazon has a free app that can be downloaded in less than a couple of minutes and the link is in the side bar on my book page.

Posted on January 3, 2014 by Jessica Dofflemyer · 8 Comments

California Textures

I am finally back from many days with virtually no internet service and sporadic cell phone reception. It was a welcome relief to ‘check out’ and ‘check in’ with myself, my family, and the world around me.

We covered a lot of ground in 11 days, but still held a smooth and steady pace, as we explored the distance between the broad shores of the Pacific and the big trees of the Sierras Nevada mountains.