Category Archives: Human Nature

Foodie Tuesday: Start with Simplicity

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The end of the year is a good and fine and happy thing. I would never claim to be so tough and unsentimental as to reach the end of anything without a glance backward, without a touch of wistfulness about all of the great things that have been. I’m much too thankful for my wonderfully blessed life to leave it all behind without a blink. But the obvious upside of the end of a good thing is that it is, potentially, the beginning of any terrific other thing I can imagine and am willing to work toward experiencing, knowing, or achieving.Photo: Sparkler

I’ll toast that. Something sparkly is always appropriate for inviting the most dazzling future imaginable to come and be mine. So whether it’s mineral water with a little fizz, elderflower or fruit pressé, or some refined adult bubbly beverage, I’ll drink to a magnificent future. Some delicious food is appropriate with that, not to mention a good way to slow down the drinking of the sparkling drinks in a good and healthy way. My preference for occasions like this is food that is easily prepared ahead of time, varied in flavors and textures and temperatures and all of those lovely kinds of qualities, and easy to eat without a lot of fiddling around with cutlery. Yep, a cocktail party. Kids love hors d’oeuvres or appetizers just as much as their elders do, and most of us get a special kick out of miniature stuff, too, so finger food with spritzy drinks wins!

Photo: Smultron

Well, maybe not *that* miniature. A girl could starve to death.

But a new year also begs me for a new attitude in general. One of my particular wishes for the year ahead is that, despite the many worthwhile and appealing events that guarantee a busy twelvemonth, I will live as mindfully as I can. I want to savor all the food and drink of which I partake, just as I should relish all of the events of the day to the fullest extent I can. Do less, and do it more slowly, just because I can get more out of what I do choose, from the food and drink I enjoy to the events of the day in which I enjoy them. What a thought.

For my New Year’s Eve and Day celebrations to gleam the most brightly and beautifully, perhaps a contrasting context of unhurried, uncomplicated quiet and calm will be the best setting for the jewels of newness and anticipation. I resolve to unplug sooner, more often, and for longer periods throughout the year ahead. Our recent power outage adventures were a marvelous reminder of what sweet benefits come from that one easy commitment. A single evening with the lights off, the oven, microwave and TV out of commission, the batteries of our computers run down to empty, and the bridge into town closed by the same storm that knocked out the power—that night was an unexpectedly welcome and timely reminder of what really gives me joy. Even a dinner of cold cereal was a remarkably delicious last-minute substitute for the intended hot food, when I ate it in the company of my beloved, the two of us leaning in over our bowls by amber candlelight and laughing like little kids at the campfire-casual quality of our romantic evening.Photo: Candlelight Dinner

Later, we sat on the couch, with our handful of candles occasionally flickering brightly enough to reach as far as the rain-blurred windows, and enjoyed sipping an exceptional red wine while doing nothing more plugged in than attuning ourselves to an actual, slow, lengthy, lingering, lovely—hey! Watch those minds of yours, y’all!—conversation. Heaven. An uninterrupted evening of candlelit dinner and conversation over a superb glass of wine. I’ll enjoy this New Year’s Eve with my medium-rare roast beef and baked potatoes, the dessert of freshly baked apple and brown sugar crostata (pictures to follow!), and the happy midnight toast of sparkling goodness, yes, absolutely. I look forward to many more such delights in the year yet to come. But I’ll take better advantage, too, of the day with a plate of fried eggs, a rasher of bacon, and a glass of milk, or the evening when I thought I was going to have to eat on the run and a canceled event let me stay home instead and fix up a nice, slow-simmering ragout of vegetables and mushrooms to eat with chewy, crusty peasant bread, perhaps complemented by another glass of that marvelous red wine.

Photo: Dawn's Early Light

A new day is dawning…

Slow and steady doesn’t just win the race; it is the race. Happy New Year to us all!

Morning and Evening

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Digital illustration: Happy New Year

Year In, Year Out

The year begins with ice and fire at dawn

As January draws the curtain high,

Revealing what is written on the sky

To turn our vision forward and move on—

Into the year ahead, awake, renewed,

To see what can be done, what holds the key

That everything required of you and me

Will help fulfill the prophecy we viewed—

Move us with hope and joy through dark and light,

Through time that tests us as it passes by

Until we see another evening sky

Leading the way to that December night—

When once again we’ll come to gather here

And mark the changing to another year.

Digital illustration: Happy New Year Again

All Together Now

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One of my favorite vocal coaches is fond of characterizing people who focus on their own singing to the point of losing track of and/or sticking out from the rest of a performance at inappropriate times as expressing their “individual enthusiasms.” I’m doubtful I would be as tactfully euphemistic. We’ve all seen and, more importantly, heard concerts where one unplanned solo ended up hijacking the whole event, and it’s hard to forget what was so frustrating and embarrassing about it for the other performers and the audience and even harder to remember all of the probably fine or even excellent things that were supposed to be the stars of the day.

The same is true, naturellement, outside of musical performances as well. Our individual enthusiasms lead us to speak out of turn, act squirrelly in the middle of serious events, blurt out exceedingly inconveniently unfiltered thoughts, and generally act like little kids at the best of times. At worst, they make us deeply uncivil, unwilling or unable to negotiate, and self-centered to the point of implosion. Or, more often, explosion. This world does not need my opinion, unless I’m willing to get the rest of the passionate populace to engage in the conversation and collaboration that will make it needful. And in that case, they’ll quite generally be on board with my enthusiasm already and there will be little to negotiate.

None of this means that everyone should think and act in lockstep. What a horrific idea! Most of the great performances of our time are not solos, even those that feature soloists, but rather collaborations with the entire cast, crew, production staff, and audience, at a minimum. The deliberate and thoughtful give-and-take of everyone performing his and her part to the very best level possible is what creates the ideal of harmony, even in times when fruitful dissonance is desirable to throw that harmony into beautifully sharp contrast. Music is obviously full of grand examples of this stuff, but so is life in general. The sorrows and hardships, if they are carefully shared burdens, throw the joys and pleasures into higher relief, and the larger song of human experience continues to grow in beauty.

Photo montage: In the Works

Instead of throwing a spanner in the works, why not find ways to make them run more smoothly together for a more harmonious performance?

I Made It Myself!

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Funny, isn’t it, how proud we are of things we think we have accomplished, no matter how silly and shoddy they may turn out to be. As often as not, we are the engineers of our own destruction; whether we stubbornly and hubristically fail along with our ridiculous doings and inventions or not is sometimes a matter of mere luck and circumstantial adventure.

Digital illustration from a photo: I Made It Myself

Digital illustration + text: Engineers of Folly

Celebrate Anyway

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Christmas day means nothing at all to a whole lot of the world. Even some fairly devoted Christians are either skeptical about the accuracy of modern guesstimates of when the historical person Jesus appeared on earth or, in some cases, just plain weary of the commercial kidnaping of Christmas as a secular holiday. Beyond that, there are innumerable people and nations so impoverished or endangered as individuals, as communities, or as entire regions of the world that the last thing they can afford to pay attention to is an arbitrarily set date for recognizing anything as a reason for joy and revelry.Photo: Cymbals

There are no gladly clashing cymbals, no brass choirs trumpeting their huzzahs to the skies, no parades or packages, masses or meditations that can fill the void in hearts and homes oppressed by war, famine, disease, hatred, or inner turmoil. The very thought of happiness and reverential bliss, if it can even pierce the noise and violence, the stress and terror holding such people hostage, seems hollow and artificial. Goodness and light are as distant and unimaginable as the most ridiculous fiction.
Photo: What a Lot of Brass

These sufferers deserve to have their sorrows and their pains lifted from them, obliterated by any and all who dare to change history. No one knows better than I that not everyone has the strength and wherewithal to be so bold in action. But if we cannot do so with our physical labors, we must do so with our hearts and minds, our words, our plans, and our constancy in spirit. One voice at a time, one solitary note sung by a tiny, quavering voice, is the only way to begin moving toward a day when others, also one by one, will join and build to a worldwide song of peace. Only when we direct our every breath toward healing, harmony, and hope will the song come fully alive. Every atom of our being will whisper, speak, sing, and shout until the whole of humanity rings with echoing gladness.
Photo: Stringed Instruments

One moment’s pause, one hour of cease-fire, one hospital patient or lost child or elderly neighbor rescued for one single part of a day at a time makes space for the sound to bloom. We need to make room, and lest the horrors should return to fill the void, we must fill it up instead with songs of hope and joy and celebrate any way we possibly can. The other voices will someday, if we sing for long enough, follow.

The Changing of the Guard

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As December draws toward its end and a new calendar year lies just over the horizon and out of sight, there is always a sense of anticipation. It’s a many-layered thing, too, this look forward, carrying my constant consternation at all of the possibly awful unknowns like some sort of a scratchy underlayment to the innocent eagerness to discover great and wonderful things ahead. My own small history has taught me that both will hold true to one degree or another in 2015, just as they have for every day, season, year, and chapter in my life, little speck that it is in the equally fearful and fantastic unseeable future of the whole of existence. Knowing that these things will come to be regardless of any worry or wondering on my part never stops me from either of those things.Graphite drawing + text: Change of Heart

The one very best aspect of all of this is that I find every modification does move me to grow and change. I, along with the days, seasons, years, and chapters of my storyline, can be made better by their passage if I choose to keep my mind and heart engaged. Newness ahead can mean new life ahead. Today is a day when the beautiful potential of the best kinds of change should shine most brightly on the horizon of anyone who longs for it.

Industrious

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My nature is just about the polar opposite of industrious. If there were a way to recline and remain immobile and mentally inactive without being in a completely vegetative state while still getting through daily life, I would probably have discovered it by now, but I manage to keep alarmingly close to it in spite of all urgings toward better things.
Photo: Skansen Factory

I have tremendous curiosity about and admiration of those who are, conversely, hard workers and the wonderful machinery that represents and supports them in their labors. But I have never progressed far beyond the stage of admiring these ‘rude mechanicals‘—human and otherwise—in the abstract. To me, they remain alien and magically artistic yet quite incomprehensible. Only when contemplated in the stopped state required for rest, repair, and refueling do they even register in my mind as real.
Photo: Red Engine

I will always admire and be immensely grateful for those people who do the work of the world, who keep it chugging on all cylinders and, indeed, invent and craft the machinery that does the chugging. I could not enjoy this life of privileged repose and ignorant ennui if it weren’t for being carried by the very machinations of these titans. I bow at their feet in humble gratitude and respect.
Photo: Vintage Helicopter

And while I’m down here curtseying, I notice that the floor looks quite comfortable and inviting indeed. If you should need me later, come back and look for me where I’ve stretched out on the rug in a slackly indolent heap. Don’t make too much noise, though, for I may be dreaming happy dreams of gears turning, flywheels whirring, and motors purring, and it would be a shame to interrupt them with actual action.

Audience of One

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Photo: Plenty of Room for More

Those of us who are artists of any sort are mostly destined for one extreme or another: fame or invisibility. There are a fair number who manage to become something in between, of course, making enough money or garnering enough notoriety with their work to evade complete obscurity, but by virtue of that very existence in between, they too remain generally unknown by the broader world.

I have neither the skills nor the ambition to make myself successful in the business aspects of being an artist, so it’s a virtual lock that I’ll never be rich or famous, let alone both. That means, for me, that to be a success I must focus on working to please an audience of one. Even those who love and support and care about me have no obligation to admire and delight in my artistic output, and they can’t, without a large number of less-connected persons, make me a resounding financial success. My loved ones do seem to like my work, often enough, a fact that defies logic in its own special way, but that still doesn’t make those who adore me, singly or en masse, rich enough to make me rich, even if they sincerely wanted to own passels of my creative output, another reality which would not necessarily represent great intelligence or aesthetic taste on their part, even by my loose standards.

I can and do self-publish, and though that’s clearly an unnecessary and unbusinesslike indulgence, it makes the process of writing and drawing, painting and composing more entertaining for me and less of an invisible feeling enterprise. It doesn’t change the business end of the equation other than endorsing the probability that nobody in his right mind will pay me for things I’m giving away for free anyhow, but it motivates me to do something, anything, more than I might otherwise.

So where does that leave me? Knowing that I am working on my art, first and foremost, to please myself. I am and always will be heartily glad if and when others genuinely share my enjoyment and appreciation of what I consider my share-worthy artistic output. It’s a huge thrill when anyone deigns to spend actual, legitimate, government-recognized currency of virtually any national origin on the purchase of any of that work. But since the latter sort of happenings are rare as hens’ teeth, I will do best to enjoy my sporadic glimpses of small-scale fame when anyone expresses pleasure in my art, and the rest of the time, relish the process of production and any end products of it that I like, all as president, primary cheerleader, and sole permanent member of my own fan club, the way most of us artists are nature-made to be. Is that the sound of one hand clapping I hear, or did somebody just smack me to try to knock some sense into me?

Aging Gracelessly

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If I started out without being very lithe and blithe and graceful—just ask my dance teacher from when I was in second grade—there’s little hope I would suddenly have become any more so in the years since unless I had been working assiduously to defeat my cloddish nature. But I haven’t. Your first clue, of course, should be that word “working,” as you all know so perfectly well that I am opposed to, if not utterly incapable of, being a worker bee and exerting energy. That is neither new nor likely to change radically with the passage of further years, in which I will naturally become more ossified and less willing and able to assimilate new knowledge, less flexible and worlds slower in my reflexes.

What I do have in my favor as I age is an ever-growing ego and ever-shrinking ability to be embarrassed by my evident weakness and silliness and fallibility. So as I go skipping my way through yet another birthday, I am not much troubled by my actually achieving this advance in age by, you know, getting older. As it’s always been said, it sure beats the alternative. And there really are a lot of great things about aging and the passage of time that tend to offset the cost.

So don’t mind me if I stumble and fumble around, making quite the fool of myself as usual and hardly managing to avoid absolute implosion. The occasional face plant isn’t nearly so hard to take as not being alive enough to fall on my kisser once in a while. Making plenty of mistakes and missteps keeps me interested in not only how to avoid the same pratfalls the next time or two around but also in how to enjoy the goofy glories of just being an extra in life’s always grand action. And you never know when I might manage a real, if awkward, pirouette or plié before collapsing in creaking and squeaking and laughter. Keep your eyes peeled.Graphite drawing + text: Aging Gracelessly

Unique Talent

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Some of us are terrific at doing things the hard way. I can blame some of my peculiar talent for that on being dyslexic enough to consistently, persistently turn right when I should go left, push when I ought to pull, and stand up when I am expected to sit down. A bit of my wrong-way gift comes from being too intimidated to ask for help and too impatient to study the proper technique. Some share of the problem lies in my sheer stubbornness and iconoclastic eccentricities. Even when I ‘get it’ I can be resistant to sticking to the recipe or just plain forget what I know at precisely the wrong moment.

As I finished writing that last paragraph, in fact, I realized that I’ve been using my little notebook back-to-front and can’t remember why I started using it ‘in reverse’ in the first place.

The great thing about being and upside-down and inside-out sort of person is that most of us outlier sorts manage to muddle through anyhow. There’s a reminder in all of our strangely variant approaches that life offers us more options than we often think to use. Sometimes the sidelong slide into a task proves to lead through unexpectedly wonderful byways or to an unpredictably elegant end.

Falling headlong into life, it seems, is sometimes a happy and wholesome thing.Graphite drawing + text: Flower Arranging