Saying yes...

Taking a Different Route

While writing a post from a few days ago, I suddenly realized I was on a different block... yes, in my mind, I had a very clear image of walking, and I had taken a different route to my blog... I'm not sure where I made the turn, but I was definitely in a different place. I actually stopped typing long enough to look in and see what was on the block... to take a look at the houses, see how it felt. Yes, I was somewhere else, I hadn't taken the usual route, or the route of choice for the past few months.

I think with blogging, along with so many other things I routinely do,  I often tend to phone it in. OK, maybe it's not that disconnected... I'll just get in a groove, for better or worse, I'll take the same mental route so often that I don't notice and then something will shift and off I go in a different direction, usually not fully realizing until I'm en route. It's funny to all of a sudden realize you've made a change... why did you not realize it when you took that turn? Why did it just click in now? And what made you take that turn, maybe one so subtle it didn't even cause any immediate ripples??

I don't know that this route is better than the others or even that different, but it didn't feel bad either... didn't feel like one to leave right away... and instead it felt kind of interesting.  You just realize you've shifted. Maybe it's just a mood shift or a momentum shift. You're experiencing something differently. I tend to experience those shifts in images. Surely others feel it in their gut or maybe there are those who are always on top of the shifts, directing every move. My alert system is most often an image. I love it when they finally get through and let me know I'm off on something else. I probably notice it before then on some other level, but it's an image that pops up with something unrelated that lets me know for sure. Yes, I love the images and what content they carry. They also show up even if it's not a change, but maybe a way of seeing something unseen.

The other day I was e-talking with someone when I realized that for awhile I had had a visual of our ongoing conversation. This conversation is not one of dire importance, but merely the thoughts that trickle out from time to time... usually mine. This person is much more concise... much more Spartan in their use of words. I'm anything but... I can be, but for some reason, in email, I flit from topic to topic, get pulled off on tangents, go here, go there... It's probably very inconsiderate and selfish... I should stay on point, but I don't. Anyhow, I realized I had a very definite visual of this ongoing conversation... most of the time it was a fairly simple line surrounded by a line with many flourishes. That will stick in my mind... until the images tell me things have changed... until I find I've turned a corner and have ended up in a new spot.

Glow

 
The maple tree right outside our bedroom windows went from 93% green to 97% not green overnight this past Sunday. What was still a GREEN tree on Sunday afternoon, was a gold/red/dropping leaves tree on Monday morning. I guess conditions were right.

I've never put curtains on these windows because I love being able to see outside and the windows are high enough that no one can see in. I mainly love watching the tree and everything that goes on in it and with it. I love it during this time of year. It just glows and our whole room glows with it. The accompanying image gives you an idea, but is still lacking in fully expressing the full glowy-glowiness that is going on.

The protective filters are down and the mouth is open...

I was talking with a friend a number of weeks ago, I don't remember the progression of the conversation, but do recall ending up talking about what artistic projects I was working on when this little nugget came out... He said, "It's too bad you haven't been successful with your artwork."  He said I had not made much money, or if I had, I had not been consistent.

I sat silent for a moment, confused... It was so strange because in my heart of hearts I could reel off a hundred ways in which I had been successful with it and they were very important ways, ways that meant the world to me. The money part seemed so insignificant at that point. I was thinking instead of my artistic victories; it was so odd to hear someone sum up my entire creative path in terms of money. I understand how he could have done that. I've done that at times, many other people have done that, but when it came right down to it, too much had gone well for me to dismiss it. 

I've treated my artistic abilities like a loyal pooch. No, that's not true, I'd treat a dog better... I've treated them more like a high school boyfriend... there when I need it, dismissed as soon as something more intriguing comes along... and there again when something intriguing doesn't call or live up to the hype. You get the idea.

I don't think I ever set out to have a serious artist career (to be said in deep booming voice!). I love painting, but never wanted to be Julian Schnabel. I always liked Pop Culture a little more (yes, I said it!)and would have been happy making one silly thing that the masses embraced as a touchstone.  And I wasn't even sure of that.. other paths were often more intriguing, but when they paled or life's direction changed, art was there waiting for me. Sometimes I treated it as dismissively as a party trick, other times I realized I might have underestimated it. As I've gotten older, I've relied on it more and more... appreciated it more and more, taken it for granted less and less. I've slowly realized it's not a separate part of me, but was just me... me needing to make things, needing to capture things, needing to express in various ways.

I've made a lot of discoveries over the years. They haven't stopped, if anything, they've increased. I think back to the artistic person I was in high school and in college and then as a young adult, times when I thought I had reached all there was to reach, that my vision was complete, and I laugh because I've realized over the years that I will never stop learning new ways of seeing things, new ways of experiencing things, and with these new ways will come new ways of expressing. It's never-ending, thank God.

I felt I was all that in my 20's... but my 30's held creative changes I never would or could have expected. My 40's have been just as eye-opening. I keep moving forward, keep feeling and seeing things on different levels, which is why it was so funny to hear my entire artistic success summed up in terms of the bottom line. It's ironic because looking back, I probably made more money on things that were nowhere near what I am capable of today. I'm almost ashamed I took money for them...

No, my artistic success cannot be summed up in mere dollars. If anything, my lack of consitent earnings over the years has proven I've failed at marketing and business. Or I've failed at being concise and knowing exactly what I've wanted to do or be when I grew up.  I haven't failed in art, I've failed at making money, I've failed at focusing and choosing. I haven't failed at what I've created or how what I've created has evolved and how I feel about it. I haven't failed in how I see things or feel things. I haven't failed at having ideas, THANK GOD. You have permission to shoot me should my imagination ever give up on me and leave. No, I just honestly could not say I had failed. It was nice to see it like that, to feel it like that, probably for the first time ever.

The gelatinous state of creation

I was just having a side discussion with somebody about what we enjoyed more... the journey or the destination. I do like destinations, but have to say, I really like the journey, both literally and figuratively speaking. I like being suspended between endpoints.

I told this person that I liked being in the gelatinous state of creation.

This reminded me of a conversation with another person earlier this summer. We were discussing a trip this person had just taken... a trip to a wonderful locale. I had taken a trip recently myself. The location was pleasant and familiar, but what caught me off guard was my return trip home:

When we were driving back home through NW Indiana and Eastern Illinois, I was taken by the fact that this was a drive I’ve done so many times in my life… and for some reason, I was just paying more attention on this trip… part of it was trying to see if I had told a nephew the correct routes of various trains, part of it was trying to keep my mind off of other stuff, but it was probably the first time in a long time that I was really looking at it all and it all seemed very vibrant… I remember being aware of feeling like I could stick my arm out the window and drag my fingertips through the scenery much like water and that the scenery would ripple. Along with that was the feeling of expectation… of things to come… not sure what, but it was an excitement and I was wondering if it was all that is possible, but you just have to decide it’s going to happen. I remember being aware of that feeling and thinking I’d like to keep that handy… keep it with me in a bottle I can open when needed…

I keep wondering if it's possible to live in that state with occasional stops along the way.

Nonscents

The previous post and comments regarding AXE body spray, particularly Brando's and Kathleen M's, reminded me of one summer when a good friend was away in Europe. Although he was having a fabulous time, he missed certain things about the summers he was used to. Feeling somewhat sorry for him, although not that sorry, he was after all, spending his summer in Europe... I sent him a scent care package.

I carefully dowsed little squares of tissue paper with a number of items, some of which were... OFF, gin, suntan lotion, a fragrant flower. I then placed them strategically on the letter, somehow thinking they'd keep their aroma to themselves, or better yet, making a wonderful summer bouquet.

WRONG!

They mingled a little too much. Or rather, one scent bullied and took over the rest... take a guess which one... I should have wrapped the squares in plastic, but it was airmail... not only was it airmail, I believe I used an aerogram. You weren't supposed to put anything else in it so the contraband tissue paper went in free to cavort.

I doubt that aerogram would have even made it out of the country had I sent it today.

Hubble Wonderfulnous

Have you seen the recent Hubble photos?? I love them. How could you not? And, I realize they're really just a fabulous Rorschach Test, but still... what a test?!

This one is called Butterfly, but it reminds me much more of Kissing Gouramis... even if the profile is more like an Angelfish. 

I love the angry monkey in this one! Just what is that monkey angry about?!?!

And this one reminds me of the car windshield one time last winter... around Christmas time, I was waiting for Grizzled's train.  It was dark, the holiday lights were lit and it was sleeting/misting. The windshield was spotted over with moisture causing the lights to blur and run. It was beautiful. This is beautiful.

I've loved the Hubble photos every since they first started coming back. One of the first ones I saw reminded me of the image I always had in my head of "God" when I was a kid.

If I heard “Jesus”, I thought of the classic, yet incorrect, Anglo Jesus, but if I heard “God”, the image that popped into my mind was much more abstract... more like smoke dispersing into the sky or ink blooming out into water. It's just what popped into my head and no amount of parochial bs could convince me otherwise.  That's what those images reminded me of and when I first saw them, I felt like I was looking at something I had known all along.

So pretty!!!! Ewwww!!!!

I was reading out on the patio this afternoon. It's still kind of on the cool side, but it was sunny and we've had a dearth of sun. 

But perhaps one of this summers most lasting legacies was its lack of sunshine. Summer 2009 goes down in the books as the cloudiest on record. Never since sunshine records began 115 years ago has a June-through-August period hosted less of the possible sunshine. Sunshine is measured in minutes and the summer's total was 42,887 of the season's possible 80,626 minutes of sun, or 53 percent of possible sunshine---67 percent is considered normal.

I was going to get all of the sun I could given that we'll lose 120 minutes of daylight by the end of this month...

At one point, while taking a break, I looked up from my reading material and looked around the yard. Even with the lack of adequate summer sun, the plants still looked beautiful. My eyes then went to a bunch of bumble bees that were frolicking on a volunteer sunflower. Next, I noticed what looked like tinsel on the patio. Lots of it...

Ok, it's not unusual to find a random piece of tinsel from last year's sacrificed tree, but this was everywhere! It formed some random crisscrossing pattern. I then realized it wasn't moving. There's a significant breeze today and tinsel would move... but what would reflect like that?? Water would, but the patio was dry. I leaned down to take a closer look.

Slug tracks!!!

It still amazes me...

... how different an August leaf sounds from a June leaf... I think if I were blindfolded and someone played a recording of wind going through a tree in August vs. one in June, I'd be able to tell the difference. They're not as dry and crackly sounding as they will be in yet another month or so, but you can tell they've lived. They're not the young supple things they were in late spring when they sounded more or less like swatches of silk rubbing against each other. Nope, now they sound more like twill. One more month... they'll sound like paper grocery bags.

Unsatisfied...

One of my Sunday morning rituals, if I am in my natural Sunday morning habitat, is to sit down with coffee and the Sunday paper and do some crosswords. Two important elements in this ritual would be the proper pen and the proper paper texture... while I like to do a few crossword puzzles, the first one I start with is usually the Chicago Trib Magazine puzzle... the paper, while not as glossy as a true magazine, is definitely smoother than the regular newspaper thus causing less drag and less ink-absorption.

They've changed the Trib's format... no doubt due to their bankruptcy. While they told us it was due to the readers' requests, we readers know better. They're cutting corners, they're jamming things together, they're using cheaper paper. My opening crossword puzzle is now on regular newsprint, really thin newsprint... it's throwing off the whole sensory experience. It might be better for the environment and the paper's bank account, but not for me.

As if that's not bad enough, this morning, I could not find my pen of choice... the one that's got an extra fine point, but not too fine... the one that doesn't snag the paper, but glides over it. No, all of those pens were MIA. I was forced to use an uber-fine one with what appeared to be barbs on it... barbs that snagged the already toothy, porous paper, thus furthering ink absoprtion.

I finished the puzzle... got all of the answers, but it just wasn't the same. I need my surface/pen experience of yore.

Have you ever licked an Alka-Seltzer??

Or perhaps, eaten a Zotz?? Well, this goofy looking little plant is a lot like those... It's called Spilanthes. I discovered them a number of years ago, liking the silly way they looked, kind of like a mutant green olive.  They make a fun border or an interesting addition in a pot.

It turns out, they're a medicinal herb... known to aid in good dental health. Eating one of these puppies (yes, they're edible... trust me!) will cause your mouth to start tingling and the saliva to start flowing... for quite awhile.

 I've been guilty of inflicting them on numerous people... Grizzled thinks it's cruel. I think it's educational. It's not painful... merely like chewing on a 9-volt. :)