Category Archives: Thinking Aloud

Big Fan

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Photo: Big Fan

My favorite mode of transport is another person’s coattails. Being the perpetual tag-along serves a number of functions greatly and simultaneously. First, it dovetails handily with my indolent nature, allowing me to let others do the heavy lifting of thinking, doing, and being important. I don’t have to have anything grand to contribute. Just go along for the ride, don’tcha know.

While I’m not much on generating heat—hot flashes notwithstanding; I’m talking about star power here—I’m quite happy to catch a little reflected glory before regaining my modest pose of poise and deflecting the shine back where it belongs. Being on the periphery of stardom means I can have a front row seat to see what the greats do with their time and energies without breaking much of a sweat myself. I can admire, and even learn, without the pressure of the present spotlight.

As a naturally introverted and intimidated person, I can enjoy a glimpse into the alternate universe of extroverts and experts without excessive fits of fear. I, in turn, provide the kind of audience that gives these otherworldly beings quiet approbation without judging them for their moments of offstage humanity and humility, giving them room to be ordinary and extraordinary at the same time, as most true artists are.

I’m a big fan of others’ accomplishments, but I’m not much on making a big show out of my admiration, either. Like the old AC unit in the dusty dance hall, I’m glad to keep making the talented two-steppers happy to keep up their dancing while I just enjoy the show from my place in the shadows.

Things I’ve Learned

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Most of the stuff I’ve been taught over the years hasn’t stuck especially well. Key among the useful and meaningful skills and knowledge that have been handed down to me are the remarkably applicable ones wherein I ought to spend most of my energy on keeping my mind open and my mouth shut. Many a disaster can be averted, I know, and many a mountain scaled, if one only practices this simple-sounding combination. But I also know from long experience that the person able to perform this remarkably magical duo of acts on a consistent basis is all too rare, and I am hardly the best practitioner of them.

Other people’s shortcomings, of course, are neither my excuse nor my problem: it’s I alone who need to iron out the kinks in this skill set. Along with these, there are a huge number of additional talents I ought to have cultivated better by now, knowing as I do through experience and example how significantly they can and should improve my life and the lives of those around me. For example, what if I stuck to the demonstrably excellent principle I’ve been taught, in which one stays focused and present in the now, the moment being lived, rather than entangled in mistakes past or muddled by the ever-impossible-to-read future? I can only imagine I’d waste a whole lot less time, energy, and worry, and spend it much more profitably and pleasurably.

I have learned a lot of things that, on their own and at face value, seem quite minute and insignificant but can actually be useful, if I pay attention to them. And if I bother to consider their inverses, their hidden sides, they may all the more inform and improve my existence. Life isn’t all clover and strawberries. Yet, as it happens, the occasional, if less-adorable, onions and garlic can season delicious dishes that even the most sensitive palates can love. A weedy dandelion brings provocative beauty, sometimes by its mere contrast, to the most refined and orderly of gardens. At times, the best company is oneself alone. Bigger, newer, louder, faster, stronger, and prettier are not always better. Cuddly looking creatures can bite. Long, heavy books can be well worth reading, but “Classics” aren’t always so.

Does hearing, knowing, practicing, or appreciating any of these tidbits really make me a better or more righteous person? Nope. But a longtime practice of attempting to find and test such little specks of potential goodness in the chaos of life might—could—help.
Digital illo: Things I've Learned

I’ve learned a lot of brilliant and useful things in my lifetime thus far. It’s too bad I’m not always good at putting them into practice. But I’m working on it, really I am.

So Much Good Reading, So Little Time

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Photo montage: So Much Reading, So Little TimeOne of the keenest problems in a comfortable life, that. So much great stuff that I would love to read, and such a short life. So many beautiful pages of literary jewels and deliriously fun junk, paper and zine, novel and blog, that I would happily devour, if only there weren’t so much other Stuff to be done in the finite hours of the day.

In my case, of course, there is the additional complication of being an interminably slow reader. I will have to live to be 627 years old, at least, to read all that I’d like to read. Add to that the extra time (about half again as long) to comprehend what I read and I will have outlasted Methuselah and any number of other supernal beings. And the problem remains, on top of this literary one, that I will have a wide assortment of other highly irksome and undignified complications to overcome and survive in order to achieve such an advanced age. So I have to pick and choose what I am willing and able to devote my actual reading time to perusing, and accept my limitations with as good a grace as I can manage.

This summer, though many of you whose blogs I am fond of visiting for both reading and commenting might be surprised to hear it, I have been reducing rather than increasing my holiday reading. Since much of what I do read is online, and on an erratic schedule with less frequent long periods of sit-down-and-read time, let alone with reliable wi-fi access, I must think about what little I can squeeze in between other summer activities and parcel out my energies and devotion accordingly. I assure you that this is in no way a reflection on the quality and desirability of your work and its pull on my imagination, but it’s rather the reverse: that I want to return to it when I can give it more of its due and proper attention and appreciation. I will return to you, rest assured. Meanwhile, I hope you are lying back on a comfortable chaise in the summer shade, sipping a cool drink, and reading whatever stirs your soul while the season lasts.

Just Because…

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Digital illo: Life PatternsJust because something is beyond my understanding doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

Just because it defies convention doesn’t mean it Can’t Be Done.

Just because it surpasses my imagination doesn’t mean it’s unnatural and illogical.

Just because it seems superhuman doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

Just because I’m small and insignificant and mortal doesn’t mean I shouldn’t seek deeper understanding, challenge my boundaries, learn from nature, investigate logic and the natural order of things, and

lean hard against the edges of

impossibility…

Just Another Oddball Day in Paradise

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Digital illo: Got It Made in the ShadeIt was a day of superb weather. As expected. It’s only that it was the kind of weather expected at entirely different times of the year, or at least in entirely different parts of the world. At least, by me.

In that way, it was par for the course in the modern world’s weather, at least. One doesn’t really know what lies ahead further than a few minutes, though now it’s less for the reason that weather forecasting is such an inexact art (it’s far less so than it used to be, anyhow) and more that previous centuries’ patterns have apparently been twisting and turning and emerging in wholly new directions and shapes. Exciting stuff, to be sure. Not so easy to manage our lives within it, given the difficulty of knowing whether the rain that’s begun requires a light, windbreaker sort of slicker or the building of an ark.

Meanwhile, superb weather at the “wrong” date and place.

One could spend plenty of time and energy trying to figure out why, or what it might mean in the grand scheme of things, and surely, thousands of smarter people have done so. I am not the one to solve those puzzles. I went for a walk, enjoyed the superb weather, and when it grew too hot for my taste, found a few trees in whose shade I could continue to enjoy the weather without being quite so warm.

It’s a weird world, this, and not quite like the one I thought I’d known all these years. But it still has some mighty nice shade trees here and there, and if I’m not too silly to take advantage of those, I can still think of it as a great home planet. Works for me.

May You Live a Life that is Texturally Rich

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Digital illo from photos: May You Live a Life that is Texturally RichMy fellow undergrads and I used to wink at each other in amusement over the repetition of this magical phrase, “texturally rich,” that occurred with such impressive frequency in the comments and instructions of our drawing and printmaking professor. Then I grew up (a little). And became an art teacher at the same undergraduate institution. And caught myself using that same well-polished phrase myself, with no doubt equal frequency, if not more. Because, as I learned, the influence of textural variety, depth, accuracy, placement, and inventiveness can be incredibly subtle and amazingly powerful at the same time. This, as it happens, was a hallmark of that professor’s ways of living and teaching as well.

The more I learn, the more I have come to value that aspect equally. Noticing, respecting, and imitating a wide range of life’s textures in my own not only is more fulfilling, exciting, interesting, and enriching than not for me, but I find that it helps me to better understand and admire others and their respective multitudes of characteristics and quirks. And, in turn, to attempt to incorporate those, literally and figuratively. If I see the world around me as one smooth, flat, undifferentiated expanse of sameness, I have no need to learn and grow, and no real opportunities to do so. If I take note of all of the colors and shapes, thoughts and beliefs and ideals, of those around me and the environs in which we spend our time, and make the careful effort to examine these with thoughtfulness and patience, who knows but what I might gain, along with the wrinkles of age that will improve my physical texture, some new wrinkles of wisdom on my brain and new folds of compassion to put others more deeply in my heart.

Not least of all, I am guaranteed to be safe from ennui and protected from inventing for myself an unnaturally uninteresting universe, if I manage to keep my eyes, heart, and mind open to the textural richness all around me.

And Now to Sleep…Again

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Since I missed yesterday’s posting time altogether and admitted [what you already know full well, if you know me in the least] today to my craving for massive amounts of sleep, I am grateful that today was a quiet, calm, fairly uneventful one spent recuperating from the latest adventures. And, more than that, grateful that it’s just about bedtime again. I seldom feel any sadness that any day is drawing to a close, other than the sentimental sense that a current delightful activity or gathering of friends must needs be discontinued, even if temporarily, for me to head toward sleep. So I am quite contented just now. Mother Nature has turned out the lights. I shall, too.Photo: Sundown, Maine

Too Much of a Good Thing is a Good Start

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Mixed media artwork: Everything but the Kitchen SinkI’ve mentioned before that I follow in my esteemed father’s footsteps when it comes to his motto that ‘anything worth doing is worth overdoing’; my approach to many ideas and creative processes tends toward the Baroque, if not the Rococo. It’s not that I adhere to the design precepts and concepts of either of those eras, but I do have leanings that reflect their love of what others might easily consider excess. It’s one of the reasons I so often end up working in mixed media—combining a variety of seemingly unrelated elements into my works enables me to take advantage of the strengths of each while not laboring overmuch to accomplish a number of disparate ends with the same piece.

It’s also a reason I get pleasure out of making found-object artworks. There’s a lot of both fun and challenge in working to see the possible relationships, whether visual, conceptual, or metaphorical between all of the parts I’m using and figuring out how to showcase those ideas by the way I combine the multitude of bits and bobs. Old or familiar objects, put into unexpected juxtaposition, can take on new meaning or bring surprising revelations of their possible connection and mutual influence when my proposed paradigm shift begins to provoke any change in a viewer’s expectations and experiences. But it’s not necessary to alter anybody’s thinking very radically to make these kinds of artworks fun, provocative, and entertaining to make, anyhow. So I just throw everything but the kitchen sink at the project of the moment and see what the combination inspires in me.

Looking for analogues in the world that make fitting ‘ingredients’ for mixed media art and found-object pieces can bring useful and sometimes quite surprising insights into myself no matter whether anyone else shares my sense of the connections’ logic or my pleasure in the linkage or not. And since, as you must know by now if you’ve visited here before, I have never been skilled at making money of any sort from my artworks, let alone making a living from it, the ability to fully and effectively communicate my delight in making these odd discoveries and building relationships between unlike elements through art is just plain icing on the cake. I feel lucky enough to have had the happy moment of recognition myself. If I get a little carried away, can you blame me?

Dissonance & Consonance

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Photo: Heart of a Sunflower

When the interplay of sounds, of melody and accompaniment, move toward that sharp, yearning suspension of notes that reach for each other but cannot seem to meet, the resolution—if and when it comes—is evermore the sweet. Pointed and poignant, that sacred space betwixt sunlight and shade, the delicate balance before sleep consents to wake, or life concedes to sleep in death, holds both precious sorrow and piercing joy. Just as forgiveness does not require forgetting but is rather accentuated by it, the brightest day shines all the more for its being cut with silhouettes of deepest shadow, and the inmost midnight anthracite of sky finds its peak of beauty when marked with sparkling points of stellar light.

Speak, and the silence quivers in recognition; sing, and it pulses with ecstasy.

Allegro gives way to the grieved pacing of Largo, and that, in turn, takes pause and after a longing sigh, begins to dance again, Allegretto. Season will follow season down the years, and I grow old and turn transparent with my age, until at last, hearing the call of the penultimate phrase, I remember that if I let my voice fall from the present chord, those who carry it on will draw into that beautiful, desired harmony and close the space perfectly once again. Whether voices falter, go astray, or fall silent, the return to harmony waits to bring existence back into balance.Harvest Moon

Performance/Practice

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Photo + text: Rhapsodic