Archive for the ‘Nature’ Category
How to be a Painter IV
or… "What works and what doesn’t"
In art as in life, there is no right and wrong, good and bad, etc. There is only what works and what doesn’t. Just as in life, there is that which is incongruous to our spirits and that which is beneficial to a compositionally balanced life. Daily yoga works quite well. Daily drunkenness doesn’t work very well at all. Spirit works within the rhythm of life to the degree that it creates something balanced and harmonically correct. When we choose to engage Spirit in that act of co-creation we are asking it to allow us to to participate in that compositional choice.
Nature is a perpetual ebb and flow of balance. Even the it’s most seemingly incongruous actions are still within it’s own compositional boundaries, standing out more as contrast or flourish than incongruity. Consider the platypus or the Galapagos Islands or the insanely structured flowers of the rainforest or the proportions of the horse or giraffe. All of these are balanced in relation to their landscape and, at that, to the general laws of our natural world. As such, they are put together and placed quite nicely. Some of natures creations may seem to be on the extreme end of things but nature is a dance of extremes; it pushes the envelope. A sunset can go from intensely sublime to intensely powerful, and the ocean can be a placid pool or a raging torrent. The only boundaries are the general laws of this physical world. However, we can only perceive that which is encountered by our five senses. Who knows what other levels of color, sensation and form there are beyond the boundaries of those sensations – even beyond the machinery and measuring devices we make which are simply extensions, to however fine a degree, of these senses. Who knows what dimensions, perceptions, spectrums we are missing out on. But who cares what we’re missing – let’s be where we ARE.
So, with nature, if we engage it as co-creator, we can create a more balanced flowing life and, in doing so, can create balanced, more beautiful artwork. Art is both a mirror and extension of that balance. The greatest works of art, no matter how compositionally insane – the madness of Jackson Pollock or the surrealist dreams of Salvador Dali, still possess a sense of balance and, whether beknownst to the artist or not, are an act of being in the process of co-creation with nature. The artist gives his or her mind over to that process and, in doing so, opens up to being a channel for spirit. By being a channel, I do not mean that something else is creating and simply passing through us. We are creating and, in so doing, are opening ourselves to the energy of creation. We are not separate from Spirit or anything else. When we become a channel, in it’ clearest sense, it is much like a prism taking the very white light of the sun and refracting multi-colored rainbows. When we approach our lives with this sense of clarity, the clear light of wisdom passes through us creating a visible harmony. The perspectives are correct. The colors work together. The shading and placement of objects are complimentary, even in their contrasts. We follow the creative process intuitively – the lines, the breaks, the color palate. We are the guides for the light that comes through us and we are asking it to trust us – we know what we are doing, even if, intellectually, we have no words for it.
When there is an ease and flow to our work, our arms and back are relaxed and our bodies move, ever so subtly with the brushstrokes. We shift our weight to allow for the relaxed movement of the brush the way that a plant ever so slowly turns towards the sun, not all at once or just with one leaf but with it’s entire body. Even our breathing must be even and steady for, whether we are painting the nipple of the divine mother or the muddied footprint in the corner of the canvas, it is all the same divine manifestation of Spirit and deserves the same focused attention, the same care of creation.
It is through a lack of awareness of this sort of co-creative process that we have gotten into the mess that we are in today. Art created in harmony with Spirit can, perhaps, have some deeper effect on those who see it as it brings up both a sense of harmony within the viewer and an understanding of where they don’t exist in harmony with the world around them. This isn’t to say that the clear cutting logger is going to suddenly drop his chain saw but that the rippling effect of living by example, of manifesting harmony into the world can, slowly but surely, help to bring it into balance.
Pyranee Mountains and Valleys
Driving takes us northwards, into the mountains where we find ourselves passing into what seems like a gateway into the mountains in the form of mammoth curving red rock formations that end with a punctuation of a little white walled red terracotta roofed town, along a river rushing below. We stop to take pictures, of ourselves, of the rocks and river and trees. Driving further takes us up past cows grazing, sheep grazing, more mountains, into the trees and, as the sun sets, the shadows of the mountains grow until they tower over us, looming in the dark. We make our way towards Jaca a little mountain town in the direction of our destination but at an intersection we change course and head deeper into the mountain valleys passing through littler and littler towns until we arrive in Hecho where we stop to eat in the little village of grey stone, flowers, ancient streets twisting and turning, balconies. In the brightly lit restaurant/bar, half a dozen older men come in all at once from the drizzly mountain night. They stand around the bar, in front of our table and each quickly has a glass of wine, talks loudly and with much gusto and then leaves with the same sort of bluster. Our wine and potatoes and cheese are much quieter. When we are finish we get in the car in the cold wet dark nifhr and head north towards the dot-on-a-map village of Sirensa and finally, onwards further to the little Hotel Uson, but they are full for the night (Sunday) and we must turn around and make our way back to Hecho where we get a bare little room in a stone and wood hotel. Hotel is a loose term: it’s a pleasant enough little place on a corner with rooms, a restaurant… but whenever I think of “hotel” I am doomed to mental images of Motel 6’s and Best Westerns… they are never ever like that. They are almost always cute, pleasant and homey.
In the morning, I go for a walk. The sun is rising, bathing the stone walled village in golden light. In a hillside field, one square of grass amongst others, with little stone barns, low stone walls and verdantly green grass, sheep graze in this place that place hasn’t changed for thousand years ago, save for the cars and the electrical lines. A dog sidles up beside me and follows me around town, keeping me company, showing me his hood, nice dog. When Violet awakens we have breakfast of, once again, croissants, ham, orange juice and café con leche, take a walk through town then head back to Hotel Uson with it’s quaint wood and stone farm house look, powered by solar and water and beautifully situated on a hill side looking towards the stone cathedrals of mountains that rise up out of the forests. We are given a room this time and leave our things and exploring.
Rounding the curves and bends of the twisting road into the mountains grants an eternally replenished view, a new vista and another eye-poppingly beautiful scene. We drive until our little car can’t handle the road any longer and then we get out and walk down into a valley surrounded by towering peaks of the Pyrenees while around us the gentle clanging of the dozen distant cowbells around the heifer’s necks sounds like soft wind chimes. We explore the valley, the flowers and waterfall, approach rather skeptical cows and then have some lunch on the hillside of ham and apples and bread and cheese. We take to leave and head back to a trail that goes up into the forest where we had stopped a bit earlier to check out the thistles and the view. The trail takes us up into the wet woods past numerous mushrooms in all shapes and colors, tall firs with patterned bark, the wind through the branches softly weaving together their shadows, the sound of the river rushing, Violet with her tall wizard- like walking stick, us climbing higher til it seems we can’t go much further. At last, with the air cooling, a possible rain storm on the horizon and Violet tired of climbing, we turn around and head back down where we hop in the car and stay on the edge of the gathering clouds. Back in the Hotel we shower and enjoy the mountain air feeling of the little place. We drink hot chocolate and write and draw in our journals in the sun room and then, later, eat a delicious dinner, have some wine and retire to our bedroom where we sleep deeply.
Montserrat, A Castle and on to the Pyranees
Upon awakening, I rise and dress quietly and go for a hike, telling Violet I’ll meet her for breakfast downstairs. The main plaza is empty and vastly quiet in the morning light coming through the archways and pillars, casting long arcing shadows and igniting the towering bulbous shaped rocks that loomed overhead. I find a trail that winds up into the mountains and half-run/half-walk up the long winding trail of rocks and stairs, the rocks worn smooth underfoot, stopping now and again to take a picture, catch a breath or feel the great open winds that rush through me in the morning air- the chill of the earths breath mixed with the warmth of the morning sun. I crest ridge and find myself on a wide sloping rock face overlooking the valleys below and looking up towards the towering chimney like peaks of Montserrat. I breath. I sit. I relax into the earth, warmed by the sun and cooled by the breeze over my perspiration. But I am to meet Violet for breakfast and don’t want to keep her waiting so, with a good-bye to the peaks up there, I run down the stairs, glancing down at the picturesque scene of the monastery below me, with it’s bell tower and church of reddish stone illuminated in gold by the sun.
After a breakfast of coffee, croissants, Serrano ham, cheeses and fruits we go for a walk around the wide open empty square and then wander into the main cathedral itself, adorned in grey stone gothic curves and archways of white marble, through the main cathedral plaza and then into the vast open expanse of golden arches and pillars that is the cathedral. We file in line up past golden mosaics and into the little room housing the famed Black Madonna with Child (supposedly carved by St. Luke in 50 AD, rumor has it…), get a view from the nave of the church, up behind the altar and then chill in the little insanely ornate chapel behind the statue. Leaving there we stop into the art museum and are presented with a wide selection of Catalonian artists including Dali, Picasso, Rusiñol, Degas, El Greco, amongst others. We hang out for a while longer til throngs of tourists made the entire situation a little unbearable, so we pack our things into our little Citroen that we have named Narajazul (Blue Orange) and get on our way northeastwards towards the Pyrenees, stopping briefly at the market that has set up for some goat cheese, honey and fig pate.
Half way along on the highway we decide to stop through Zaragoza to check out the Basilica and the Arab/Moorish castle, the latter of which we never found. Word from the wise: Zaragoza, in fact, most cities, are a pain the ass to get into and out of. The Basilica itself is, basically, huge – columns 20’ square, massive vaulted ceilings with distant frescoes, insanely huge. And the chapel within the chapel.. and the other frescoes and the- anyways, says Violet, if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all, they are all so alike and, besides, it’s hard to not think about the death and insanity that came with all of this – the Spanish inquisition, the gold melted from the Aztecs and Mayans to built these altars… Sigh. Well, anyhow, we walk outside in the sunshine of the giant public plaza, kids running after pigeons, a large squadron of folks all dressed in suits, little cafes lining it serving café con leche, tapas, pizza, gelato and we make our way out of town passing through a plaza framed by various iterations of the metahedron star thing.
We leave there, on our way into the Pyrenees but part way there, I see a few dots on the map signifying the Loarre Castle, built in the 11th and 12th centuries – Long time ago! Old ruins! Cool! We arrive as the afternoon sun cast it in gold and it is windy, a little cold, and we try to make it quick cause we still have a long drive ahead of us. The castle walls tower over head and we play – running up stairs and under crumbling archways trying to get a better view and wondering what could have been what and imagining this place when it was in use. As we are about to leave we hear instruments tuning and find, in the barren grey stone chapel, soft illumination and a 6 or 7 piece string ensemble practicing and taking advantage of the stone acoustics. Their sounds are warming and haunting at the same time and breath life into a structure that seems to otherwise be a shell of a former world.
The Train, The Mummy, and The Mountains
Riding along the Amtrak on my way back to San Diego passing mountains and fields in afternoon golden sunlight. Rocky red mountains tinged with green, laden with it, draped over them. At the same time, Hard to tell if i am going south or north- the sun is to my back but the land passes me from left to right. This makes no sense to me.
Egyptian pyramids and kitchy lines of “The Mummy” play out on the screen of my laptop while my mind drifts to thoughts of the Casa Barranca Tasting Room in Ojai and the work I’ll be painting a bit of detail work along the archways, stained glass looking motifs like tiffany windows or frank lloyd wright squares and rectangles or C. R. Mackintosh floralisms.
Nothing like the romance of the train to set the mind to drifing. This car with the windows that spread out overhead and allow me to get long panoramic views of these gold tinged hills.
I am hungry, and there isn’t a thing to eat except for pre-made, pre-prepared pre-packaged junk.
“Why did you kiss me” says the dame on the screen.
“Well I was about to be hanged, seemed like a good idea at the time.” Says the Brendan Fraser with long hair.
Passing oil fields and electrical lines. Power to power our world. Where is the truly sustainable resource we desire? Is desire a sustainable resource? It’s always there, ready to be tapped into. Which is a funny thing- it drives us onwards and we keep looking, uncovering and researching- to search and re-search.
Two little old ladies to my left, with their white white hair. Talking and talking non-stop. White shirts match their hair, accompanied by jackets a shade of blue it seem I only seeelderly folks wear. My Grandfather was a case in point. He had a jacket the same color – this light sky blue. The little old ladies point and gesticulate, occasionally holding hand to face in a look of being aghast at the cost or the nerve or who would have believed that one.
I love these hills with their sloping rolls that let the sun drape over them in long sinuous lines, tufted by an oak or madrone here and there. Occasionally parallel lines of orange trees create a patterned blanket in the distance.
We stop for a moment to allow a north bound train to pass and then on our way to Simi Valley, a place I will most likely never live, something that is fine by me.
I love this sunlight, this early evening golden wash over our faces, through the windows. In fact, this may be my most favorite time of the day. This, this right now, was worth the two-hour delay.
I had the option of staying in Oxnard for another hour til the later train came, at which time, I’d be boarding the same train that I’m going to get on in LA. But if I’d taken that one, I wouldn’t get a chance to spend at least a little bit of time in that fine train station that is Los Angeles’ Union Station – that gorgeous blend of post and beam Arts and Crafts style with Spanish Colonial stucco, red brick and painted tiles. Compared to the utilitarian feel of the Oxnard station, where it seems time stands still while we sit in uncomfortable park bench style seating, Union Station feels like a cathedral.
Movies like “The Mummy” – I have such a soft spot in my heart for them… some romance, some action, some magic, some cheese, some corn, some retro vision… some fun… Horses and swords and guns and archaeology. There is nothing like archaeology to spark the minds of children (me, too, my inner child speaks up). I always loved the archaeologists. Discovering lost treasure… lost civilizations and then, greater than the lost treasures are the secrets and lost magic of those places – the ark, the underground cities, the holy grail, mummies and archways and cities buried in the sand…
It’s a great movie in the way that Indiana Jones is a great movie. Which is to say that it’s a terribly cheesy movie that strikes the right chord at the right moment.
The Egyptian Book of the Dead! This is treasure. “It’s just a book…” And as she opens it, the tell-tale whisperingly squealing wind blows by… And that mummy that was dead down below is now alive… NO! They scream… YES! Perfect. I would have read this in a comic book when I was young. It s like a Tin-tin comic mixed with Indiana Jones and a dash of spook. And revolvers. Revolvers are so much more fun than automatics or semi-automatics. Although these six-shooters seem more like… eight-shooters? Twelve? Of course, it never hurts that the heroes always, and quite by accident, make off with some loot.
Back to the landscape… mounds of rocks with trees growing in their crevices and cracks.
Back to the movie…
“We are part of an ancient and secret society…”
Yes!
The gold is always discovered but, usually, it ends up buried in a mound of sand or something and the adventurer is left with the adventure. That’s all drifters such as that really want anyhow. What use does an adventurer have with treasures or gold? A kiss from a beautiful woman, a chance to shoot the gun a bit, a few unruly zombies to talk to, shoot at… Not to mention the usual bondage suggestions- the beautiful girl tied to the table, a bit of cleavage showing, her breathless mouth wide open… Nothing like being an adventurer…
Hot Springs
Sitting in the hot springs this afternoon, sunning in the sun, warm waters washing over my being. Cool breeze over perspiration laden skin. Red dragon flies buzzing through the air describe curved spiraling lines that linger in my vision. Reflected ripples of water, on the underside of a boulder overhanging the pool of sulphuric hot spring water, intertwine in accordance to the motions and intimations of the breeze, my movements, and their own echoes. A bead of sweat drips off my chin and taps the surface of the pool, forming concentric circles that merge with the larger ripples. Silence resounds arond me in the form of bird songs, rustling leaves, water rippling and rolling, sounds of life drifting through everything: the trees, the rocks, the water, me. I breathe everything in deeply and exhale everything just the same. I twist and stretch and sit still. I smile and relax. I sigh. I surrender.
The Soul in Nature
Walking in the woods, sitting alongside a river, surrounded by tall mountains and blanketed by a silver layer of clouds I find myself once again. I find myself sitting, in a pause, loosing myself in the sound of a river rushing past- in the birds, in the reflections upon the ripples of the sky and the leaves of the trees. Walking, the sounds come into my head and leave again as if a thousand conversations. Approaching the river, I hear only the distant murmur. As I get closer that murmr is a sound that is definitely in front of me, significantly more distinct- like a thought coming clear. As I get nearer and nearer the sound becomes like a rushing torrent of words, until I are in the middle of it, standing on a rock, alone, in a valley, surrounded by green on all sides, with the rushing torrent of sound crashing about me and on all sides, tumbling rocks and passing right by with a thousand other places to go and, if I sit for a moment, even if just in my mind- if I listen for just a moment- immerse myself in that rushing crashing tumbling sound of thoughts cascading into one another and let myself go into it, forgetting that there is a destination, forgetting that there is any possible conclusion and simply surrender…. When we walk onwards, with the sound now behind me, there is an unintended cleansed feeling – a clarity and a sense of peace. With the sound of the river fading away behind me like a room of conversations with no conclusions, I feel refreshed.
I need this sense of escape into the mountains- into a world untended and unhindered. With bushes that have not been trimmed, flowers whose seeds were not placed by human hands. Surrounded by rocks that were not carefully positioned along rivers whose course was not chosen by discerning and engineering minds. To be surrounded by the holistic ecology of nature – that dynamically breathing, living being, is to step inside the outside, to embrace that which tries, yearns, to embrace us.
I think about what it is to be surrounded by manicured lawns, trimmed hedges and constrained, meticulously planted flower gardens, watered regularly, lest they wilt in a land they were never meant to grow. To drive down well paved streets along securely banked curves… to see clear water come from my tap and yet, any culvert or stream flows with heaps of algae, a plastic grocery bag or two, maybe a shopping cart … Yet, how I love the wild recklessness of an untended grove of trees or the focused meandering of a trodden path. To walk up a river without following the trail, hopping along boulders and walking through cold clear water is to forget, even if just for a moment, all these trappings we believe to be so intrinsically human.
I spent so long moving between extremes of place. After I left my home of youth- the efficiently clean suburbs of Connecticut, I found myself moving further and further into rural areas – from ski mountains in Vermont and the Northeast Kingdom with it’s back to nature routines to other rural and remote areas, sometimes only accessible by foot. It is that memory that lingers as I park my car in front of my garage in suburban San Diego, walk past the neatly trimmed hedge and into my clean organized home.
I am fortunate for those brief respites in my view between one tended world and another when I drive through one of the many canyons that rim the neighborhoods of San Diego. Although even then, I am reminded of how many others see them- land that seems neglected, “undeveloped”. People equate wildness with neglect when in fact it is no such thing- wildness is exuberance while neglect is carelessness and manicured lawns are safety zones. So I need (as in- a desire, a craving) to step out of the safety zone that I find myself circumstantially surrounded by to go run through the woods, lose myself in the conversations of the river, and see my reflection in the red smooth bark of the madrone tree or the precisely curved petals of some perfectly purple wildflower. It is this kind of movement that touches on something deeper inside of me than all the malls of the world combined.
The Biology of Self-Censorship
A study was done recently regarding the part of the brain that controls self-censorship and jazz musicians.. The gist of the article:
“A pair of Johns Hopkins and government scientists have discovered that when jazz musicians improvise, their brains turn off areas linked to self-censoring and inhibition, and turn on those that let self-expression flow.
“The joint research, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, and musician volunteers from the Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute, sheds light on the creative improvisation that artists and non-artists use in everyday life, the investigators say.
“It appears, they conclude, that jazz musicians create their unique improvised riffs by turning off inhibition and turning up creativity.”
This is an interesting finding and something to consider. I enjoy learning about the actual nuts and bolts manifestations of things (or lack thereof as is the case sometimes such as when some long held belief or old wives tale is disproved… but that is another story…). Self-censorship while not intrinsically a bad thing can be a devastating creative block. We can see this lack of it’s ability to function properly in people deemed "mentally handicapped" such as those with Tourette’s Syndrome. For those who feel their self-censoring lobe is functioning properly, sure it may keeps you from blurting out that potentially tear-jearking comment to that one girl at a party but it may also be just the thing that keeps you from approaching the other girl whom you’ve been keeping your eye out for all night.
For those of us whose minds function relatively properly, self-censorship can prove as much of a handicap as for those for whom it doesn’t function at all. Much of our childhood is spent having the self-censorship mechanism reinforced. It is what keeps us from blurting out the answer in the middle of the third grade class instead of raising our hands. It is what holds us back from telling the fat girl the obvious. It is what makes us reconsider ourselves and our abilities the next time we draw a cow, a tree and a field after we’ve been told that our last attempt looked nothing like a cow, a tree or a field, even though we felt it to be a true masterpiece. That last part is the important part. With all the teaching of how to self-censor ourselves, we rarely receive any teaching in how to be spontaneous. Occasionally, we get lucky or the stars are aligned or who knows what…. something turns us on and tunes us into that spontaneously creative part of our being.
After I read that article I thought about all the music I love and one band in particular who will always have a place close to my heart, no matter how weird, loopy, jammy or whatever you want to call them. I thought about all those Phish shows I went to between the ages of 18 and 22 and about the spontaneity, the stop on a dime and switch directions, the weird vocal jams that came from nowhere, the crazy improvisations, and those transmission-like moments when dancing, music, crowd, everything was in perfect unison and it was simply the vast, vast ocean getting down with itself. Those times taught me a lot about freedom of expression. It wasn’t just the music, although that had a lot to do with it. It was about the spontaneous expression of my spirit and deep explorations of just how this whole apparatus that is my mind and body can move as one and be completely free and uninhibited in doing so.
As we start to chart that uncharted territory of our minds, we find new ways of thinking, some healthy, some not so much. We encounter identities along those paths, old shells and new ones, forgotten about habits and deep seated fears. But once a path is walked a few times, it becomes part of the general known lay of the land, especially if the first few times we walked there, it was intensely pleasurable. And if it wasn’t so pleasurable then we either seal the door and place a guard at the gate, or we go back, determined to see what is on the other side. We must look to constantly chart new territory if we are to continue to live in spontaneity and it is through the shutting off of the self-censoring mind that we can do this. In doing so we can use those tools of spontanaeity, as well as new ones that come across our paths, to help to foster this.
I still listen to Phish but also all sorts of other music and what I love most about some of the music I have is it’s spontaneous gestures of unbridled impulsive creativity- a kind of coming out of left field but at EXACTLY THE RIGHT MOMENT and EXACTLY THE RIGHT NOTE. This sense of spontaneous expression comes through in many of the arts and many of pieces of literature and movies, etc.
Some people may not be so into this expressive quality however. If we enjoy our safety and aren’t looking to explore new territory then we love the cookie cutter movies, whether they be action or romance, where we know, can almost predict, exactly what will happen. Some people have decided they don’t want to go any further and they have little self-censorship guards at all the nearest exits, just in case some part of their mind tries to make a break for it. (I promise not to devolve into some sort of Government/Censorship rant here although the ground is so fertile….)
On the other hand- some people are in a constant rebellion against those guards- constantly trying to woo them over to the other side, where we can all work together, all of these wonderful tools of our minds working in harmony rather than at odds with each other. Look at poetry: many of the poems I love the most have a kind of off the cuff feel. A poet writes what is on his/her mind and heart. They can only feel this if they allow the mind to simply BE AS IT IS, without any self-conscious voice governing it.
Consider this: by the time we are in our late twenties, we have heard a vast majority of the word combinations that exist. Many of the sentences I have already used are merely restructurings of sentences I have spoken or thought of in the past, whether I am conscious of this fact or not. Thus, when we see certain words or word combinations, we almost intuitively expect other words to follow. Yet, when we read some poetry, although it may roll over the tongue like the sweetest of crème brulees, it surprises our minds and it’s sounds, unexpected word combinations, tones, and nuances, lead us to a more heightened state and perhaps an unexpected conclusion. A good book, a movie, a beautiful work of art, they all do this to some extent or another and yet almost every artist engages in some form of self-censorship.
It may seem that the jazz musician or the expressionist painter has the most freedom in their expressions but, as I said, once a territory of the mind has been charted, it is easy to go back. Once a combination of notes has been played, once, twice, a dozen times, it is not as spontaneous to the mind that is coordinating them as the audience ear that may be listening. So even then, what may seem to us to be free expression can still end up being rehearsed – a pantomime of the original inspiration. This is not necessarily a bad thing.
I love Radiohead. Seriously love their music. But it is very rehearsed and that is who they are. They polish and sculpt their sounds, allowing for nuance and spark to appear, but always being aware of how it fits into the larger whole and using the vehicle which is Radiohead to bring them to places they have not yet charted. This is the value of self-censorship. If we are looking to manifest some grand vision we need to be aware that nuances and inspirations we haven’t yet considered will arrive while our vision comes into being. By allowing for inspired spontaneity while at the same time holding the original intention in mind, we will run the risk of creating a true work of art.
Full Moon Birds
Sometimes Birds Sing
In the Midst of the Full Mooning
Confused perhaps that the Sun’s Not Out
And will still be long in dawning.
But the Birdsong in Middlenight or
Early Morning Silence
Is a welcome brushstroke through
The late night Stillness Dance.
My ears perk UP and
are gently reminded thus:
It is Late for Me to still be
TYPING away the wee hours
of morning especially when
My Sweetie Sleeps restless and
awaiting my
Arriving.
When Driving One Must Consider
When driving, one must consider that the slow-ass person who is blocking their path, isn’t actually just being a slow-ass, they are actually driving the speed limit. It is your fast-ass trying to get past them and top the limit by fifteen or twenty miles per hour that ought to consider this. Of course, when you think about it, doing 85 versus 65 is an approximately 24% increase in speed which will get you to your destination in just the same percentage of time less than otherwise. This comes to me as I learn patience on the highway. Following the tail of some little car putzing along in the fast lane where it obviously shouldn’t be but are there only for the fact of wishful thinking or me finding myself in the far right empty slow lane, zooming along with my inner scanner lit and my senses aware of any police radar eyes watching for me, I get to where I am going one way or another.*
But then, when I find myself twisting and turning along mountain roads snaking along steep drop-offs that tumble off the highway a thousand feet or more and are dotted with tall pines with crusty snow at their bases, I try, I TRY!, to slow down a bit, enjoy the scenery, the rising ridges and dipping valleys and then I remember the deadlines, meetings, appointments that all must be gotten to within a day or two of each other, and the music pounding, some kind of funky minimal techno igniting my spirit and the drive goes on…
Up up up into the mountains, down down down into the valleys, steep ravines and canyons, a river rushing below in torrents, occasional waterfalls, no time to stop and enjoy the view, no time to grab a handful of snow and bring it home, maybe broze it for memory’s sake, so I can look at it every now and again, wistfully, misty eyed for a pleasure of life I don’t get a whole lot these days.
Journeys like this are like a video game. There are the puzzle levels, where I have to stop and talk to the king of this land or the medicine man of that one from whom I must learn the secrets of the spine, acquire the important papers, the CDs of information, or the case of wine and the treasure, collect the check and unlock the puzzle, organize the info and be gone in “x” amount of time. Then there are the hand eye coordination levels that are mostly driving twisty mountain roads from point A to point B to point C, and they just get twistier. As time goes on, and I get to other roads, and higher levels more people appear on the roads, the passage gets narrower, the sky gets dark and the level increases in difficulty.
Later I stop at a Panda Express for some food. I hate fast food but if I am going to get something it is usually fish tacos or imitation Chinese food from a big chain since I trust the freshness and cleanliness (or frozen freshness as it were) quite a bit more than the little mom and pop (sorry mom, sorry pop). The burger and fries combo disgusts me so I never go that route, even if my route takes me past them. I would rather go hungry for an hour or two more. But the Panda Express and it’s chow mein and veggies aren’t so bad. Enough time to sit, eat, talk on phone with a business associate, read my fortune (the prize of this level): “All of your hard work will soon pay off”. Right-o, all checks out. Then I am back on the road again to get home safely (the major objective of this game, above any treasures or feats of strength) to the arms of my beloved who waits for me patiently. Tomorrow, with this drive out of the way, I will be immersed again in the world I have created for myself. It’s a pretty good world and I’m consistently trying to make it better, stretch it, push it, find ways to expand it and include more- this echo of my heart, this outgrowth of my being.
Finally, as I pull in the driveway, I arrive at the final level where all I have to do is walk through the door to rescue the princess and there she is waiting for me with a plate of bread and cheese, a few olives, a glass of wine, some candles, smiling so perfectly.
*And please, by all means, if you are that slow driver, by all means, get out of the way, don’t drive in the slow lane. Really. You will only get annoyed by people like me whose headlights are shining in your eyes.
The Garden
We now have a wonderful garden we have planted in our backyard made up of over a dozen vegetables, including greens, a variety of squashes, tomatoes, etc, various herbs and lots of flowers all over. It is lovely really and rewarding…. a work in progress always, as most gardens are. So much work goes into creating a garden out of bare dusty earth. A typically dry and dead California lawn was in place when we moved in. Grass, as it is known in the northern climates, is rather useless here where, in mere moments on a hot summer day, it is scorched to a mere shriveled fluttering piece of dust. So in stead there is this stuff which passes sometimes as grass. Now, mind you, some people go to enormous lengths to create what they consider a lawn, as, it seems to them, all good americans should have "lawns" to tend, and water and fertilize and do all those other god-forsakenly unsustainable things they do to the Earth. So instead ofgrass there is this… weed… that grows. Hold on…I’llgoogle it and see if i can come up with a name… Scratch that, no idea what it is. Not crab grass… It has roots. Deep deep big roots and grows from an underground series of tubers or whatever. We have dug out roots that are as thick as my calf. That is huge! And it isn’t a root going straight down, it is a root that stretches across the yard. So we dig up where it is in the garden we are planting but across the yard, just under the surface, stretches this web of roots. Many as this as my finger, others as thick as my wrist… others… thick as my calf… At this point, tho we haven’t seen them, I would bet there are some as thick as my thigh… as my body… In any case… We dug down a foot or so, replacing much of the dirt with top soil and compost we’d been saving all winter outside… And so we planted a garden and from there, a garden as grown and we get to enjoy it’s fruits.. and there is something stuck under my space bar and it is late so I think it is time to go to bed…g’nite.
