Amy C Collins

the artist in the cave

I'll take for granted you've all heard about the 30,000 year old cave art found in Southern France, unless, of course, you've been living in a cave. But there's a good chance you have not seen Werner Herzog's 2010 documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams. We watched it last night. It's excellent. You need to see it.

The documentary was shot in 3D using small, specially designed digital cameras with very little light and a small crew. The cave is sealed behind a steel door, keeping it nearly as pristine as when Eliette Brunel-Deschamps, Christian Hillaire, and Jean-Marie Chauvet first discovered it in 1994. Herzog and his crew of paleontologists, archaeologists, geologists, even a master perfumer, received permission from the French Ministry to enter and film inside the cave. The film conveys the sloping, textured feel of the cave's calcite covered walls, stalagmites and stalacites reaching toward each other, creating a dramatic, draped and toothed environment. 

The floor of the cave is also covered in crystal, twinkling calcites, occasionally covering the skull or vertebrae of the extinct cave bear. And then we see the paintings, clear and distinct, practiced and deliberate, horses and rhinoceros, panthers, bears, reindeer, owls, hand stencils and stamps. Some are engravings, some iron oxide paintings, some charcoal. The experts believe there was more than one artist working in the cave, as many as five thousand years apart. 

Watching the film with Tim the artist, of course we noticed the skill with which these paintings were made. One of the charcoal paintings of a horse was made with a single stroke measuring nearly six feet in length. Did the artist practice in the dirt with a stick? Did he make smaller, or other large paintings on rocks and mountain sides in charcoal that have since been buried or weathered down to pebbles? Did the artist work here from smaller versions, the cave paintings scaled up copies? The images themselves are fairly sophisticated, the materials, basic. Did the artist create these works thinking, here is a piece of my life, of what the present looks like now, and I'm leaving it for future generations? Was the artist thinking 300 years out, 500, a 1,000? Could he even imagine 30,000 years after his existence? I can't. Earth will be another planet entirely, just as it was then.

We know so little about the early homo sapiens. Current theories suggest we did not evolve from neanderthals but were a separate species altogether. And there are theories that aliens from another universe mated with neanderthals and the result was the homo sapien. Did consciousness in the human mind suddenly appear, or was it a slow evolution? Was the artist with the crooked little finger in Chauvet Cave an outcast? Did his tribe believe he was wasting his time with art? Was he an angry, anxious teenager expressing his frustration on the secret walls? Was it a gallery exhibition? Did the whole village attend? Except maybe the old man at the end of the road, mean and bitter, perhaps resentful he never followed his dream to paint caves?

As Tim remarked, the artist was a keen observer. The animal illustrations are correct and detailed, the images painted with the curves and undulations of the cave wall, suggest movement and an understanding of spacial relations. There were no books, no photos, no Internet with which to study the animals. This artist spent much of his time among the wild beasts. 

All any artist wants, visual, musical, performed or written, is to share an expression of what it's like to be alive. In my small way, I am connected to the artist of the 30,000 year old cave paintings. Creatives and thinkers, we are leaving our mark in hopes to better understand ourselves and to lend some clue for others to better understand themselves. I don't think it's too far out to consider the possibility of a common consciousness centuries apart. Who knows, maybe we're related. 

 

 

Facebook: my gateway drug

Today kicks off the official Social Media Week 2012 event, staged in cities from New York to Tokyo to Sao Paulo and of course, across the Internet. Confession: I'm hardly a social media guru, not even an avid user beyond Facebook, my gateway drug, but the coincidental timing of #SMW12 makes me want to check it out. Ask me Friday what I've learned. 

A few thoughts on why Facebook is good stuff:

1. the free exchange of ideas, philosophies and content.

Facebook is the most prominent place for images and articles to be displayed and exchanged, an RSS of what your friends and family are into. I'm not talking about the cute photos of cats and babies, though they have their place in the feed, but the sharing of momentary genius, like the above image. It is not my image, not my creation. I found it in a friend's feed and the picture was not attributed. Is it stealing to share? No. Because no one is making a profit from the image.

A lot of bloggers dedicated to the craft and business of blogging will tell you, in fact everyone I've encountered, will tell you, to give stuff away. Share freely and make a profit later by bringing in more traffic today. Often it's an ebook, maybe just a simple PDF file. The gesture is similar to food sampling in a supermarket. Even if you like the new gourmet peanut-corn-basil salsa, you may not buy the product. But then you might, and that's what marketers are banking on. If I knew who created the photo I'd link to their blog or Facebook page or at least give them credit.

The point is the sharing. It's a good laugh and an accurate insight into all this social media stuff. I can tell you I'd be plenty flattered to know someone in California or Germany or Japan got a buzz from my work. Sharing is good. It promotes love and warm feelings and inspires creativity, of which we humans need more than we too often allow.

2. branding ourselves

Someone told me Jonathan Franzen remarked negatively in an interview that Facebook is too limited to "Likes", that there's no real human exchange, that's is just about branding ourselves. I can't find a reference to this, so if you know what I'm talking about, please, share. I "Like" the concept though.

We may be a country of consumers but we're also a country of proud individuals, entrepreneurs, and whether the internet has spawned a renewal in entrepreneuralism or simply made the process easier, broader, I can't say. I can remark with confidence, that yes, I am branding myself on Facebook - both this blog and Brave Mable. I'm bringing in traffic, little by little, readers and potential buyers, not to mention freelance design work based on what I've shared. Visual and graphic design are perhaps better suited - and music - to online sharing. The publication industry is still too steeped in the Old World, traditional gatekeepers and insider hand shakes. Just a thought - prove me wrong.

My blogs are a business; it's what I do with my time. It also demands I think about what I post when I share images and articles and other blogs with my Facebook friends and fans. I have to consider if it's relevant, appropriate, and if it's how I want the world to see me. In the South this is not new, ingrained even. Perception and public face is very important in Southern society, conversation topics - religion, politics, for example - are impolite. In New York, to contrast, acceptable behavior and conversation is often wide open, the individual celebrated more than class or social standing, though that's changing down here. But beyond presenting an image based in "what people think of me," one wants to share truly informative and inspiring art, information, music, humor. Facebook is a cocktail party without the cocktails and dress up. OK, maybe there's cocktails (each sets his own example). 

Maybe we could all spend a little more time thinking about ourselves as brands. How do I sell what I believe in, what I've created? How do I inspire others by sharing what I have found to be inspiring?

3. newsworthy

 My mother reads the Times Daily every day. I skim the headlines and the sports page (especially during football & basketball seasons) and read whatever she puts aside for me. But on Facebook I follow The New York Times and The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Fresh Air with Terry Gross and a few Science publications. I also skim what my friends post, and that's where I find a lot of interesting articles. Networking newsworthy items saves time and adds interest by knowing someone I know has an interest. 

4. making connections

I've heard the argument that Facebook won't last, it's a fad. I've also heard that it will absolutely last, if not in the form as we see it now, then in something very similar, given the platform's scope and influence. With 845 million active monthly users it's hard to imagine it will not last. Business aside, Facebook is a place to connect with new friends and old. 

In the last couple of years I've connected with other writers and artists I met briefly or found on the Internet, and have learned from them and shared with them. More importantly, I've reconnected with loved ones from my past, folks I thought I might never see again. I've written about these connections leading to real time visits in 2011 - a reunion with childhood friend Randa and her mother Diane in Lightning and Lightning Bugs and the round-up of college buddies and their brood in Can We Get a Snowcone? I recently found my best friend from summer camp, who grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina while I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, who has an adorable little boy, is reading The Happiness Project (which interests me greatly) and still owns a James Avery cross I gave her about 20 years ago. 

From Facebook I know that some of my old running buddies are still running, old writing buddies are still writing, old drinking buddies still drinking. I can see their beautiful children and how they pass their time. I know that they are well and happy, which is what we really want to know when we think of people from our past; that they are well and happy.

We are a geographically disparate nation. It's impossible to keep up with everyone. But through Facebook it's much less impossible. I don't have time to pick up the phone and can't expect my friends with jobs and busy lives and homes full of small children to have the time to sit and chat with me. But I can check my news feed once a day and spend fifteen or twenty minutes glimpsing their lives to know when to be happy for them and when to keep them in my thoughts. 

I "Like" Facebook. I "Like" the Internet. I "Like" the present future. 

 

 

running for life

In the past 14 years I've taken up running approximately six times. And like quitting smoking, they haven't really "taken." But this time is different. I can feel it. Seventh time's the charm. I did, after all, QUIT smoking. Nope, not even after a few drinks do I get the urge to puff that cancer stick. See where I'm going here?

A couple weeks ago I wrote about my Grandmother and her rusty pistol, her determination to empty the barrel. I also mentioned her determination to keep moving, picking up sticks and pine cones in the yard, that sort of thing. What I saw was the possible benefits to a life of movement, that at 82 I might also be getting around pretty good. I realize it's not that old, 82, but I know a lot of folks ten, fifteen years younger who are in worse shape. All I'm saying is, it occurred to me that if I keep my activity up now, it might make things a tad easier down the road. So I started running, again.

It is perhaps a little premature to be writing about this, my new habit so new it can't quite be called a habit yet. I've only been at it for two weeks now, heading into the third. But I'm already up to five miles and I feel, so, good. It's another way to be outdoors, to be alone in the world, to let my mind wander without distraction; no Facebook, no Etsy, no cell phone, no music. It's just me and the road, the sound of my breathing, the scuff of my shoes on the pavement, and my inner will to keep going. I feel my true spirit unfolding when I run, my unadorned character coming through.

In the last two weeks I have run the McFarland Park road several times, and when the park closed for flooding, I ran laps around the UNA practice field track. When the rain was heavy and constant I went to the gym and ran on the treadmill, which I dislike, because it's indoors and claustrophobic and contained. When the rain-cooled air rolled over the creek and river last week, forming a thick fog that greatly reduced visibility, I ran alongside the river as it seeped out from beneath the cloud, so still it looked contrived, like the plastic bodies of water in science and natural history museum dioramas. The bluff across the river was invisible, the pines creeping softly, dark and wet, from the gray mist that covered my path. It was magical. It inspired.

Yesterday I ran the TVA trail out to the dam and back, which I'm told is 5.1 miles. It was an amazing run that winds through moss covered trees and brush where birds chirped and fluttered, through an open field of golden winter-bit grass, crossing a road, then turning back into woods. My mind forgot itself, my body moving while my daydreams unfolded. At one point the clouds parted slightly, a wide sun ray spread out over the path before me, yellowed and glowing, and I felt the universe was giving me a direct sign, "you are on the right path," it said. 

I'm not new to this running habit. My body knows what it's capable of; it remembers how to do this. 

St. Johns Country Day School, my alma-mater, was a K-12 school when I first attended in third grade, the lower grades through the sixth, were on the one side of the quad, grades 7-12 on the other, with the front offices anchoring one end and the gymnasium at the other. In the spring the six graders were introduced to the possibilities in their future upper school careers, namely athletic pursuits. And we had by then been introduced to each sport in P.E. classes, enough so to realize I hated tennis (the ache in my wrist was too much), volleyball smacked my arms and left them red, I had no skill for basketball (which some of the girls in my class let me know in certain terms) or softball, which some girls had been playing already for several years. I have to admit here, I was a little afraid of having things thrown at me (basket ball, softball, whathaveyou). Cross Country was a sport no one seemed very interested in pursuing, but when Coach Howard talked to us about running, his vibrancy and passion, his excitement for the sport made me want to join. I honestly think the only reason I ever went out for the team was because I felt welcomed, that I could belong. The only reason I stuck with it was because my mother would not allow me to quit. Six years later I'd run on the varsity level for six seasons with a strong record, including several Districts Championships and respectable State finishes.

Running Cross Country taught me to finish what I start, and you don't stop until you reach the finish line, even if you have to shuffle jog, but you never stop, you never walk. Cross County taught me how to dig deeper and push myself a little harder, to get a little closer to my goal. It taught me to set goals. And meet them. Many of the girls on my team were a year ahead of me, had also joined the team in seventh grade and kept with it until graduation. We ran on the track team in the spring, some of us remaining distance runners, some of us becoming sprinters and hurdlers. I grew up with those girls. As people changed and moved from group to group, best friend to best friend, found boyfriends, new interests, that core group of girls were always in my life, always there for me, always sharing a common aspiration. 

And for the adrenalin, well, just looking at the schedule of local races for 2012 has got my heart skipping a touch faster, my legs shuffling slightly. I love to race. I love the buzz of nervous adrenalin pumping through the veins. It's a drug without a nasty side effect. It's a high I can't get anywhere else. Crossing the finish line has no joy equivalent. It's that unique.

And as I enter into my third week of building a base, a pivotal time in whether or not this budding habit will become a true habit, I'll remember those early miserable days, when despite the aching legs and the body's cries of pain, Coach encouraged me to keep going and Mom threatened me if I didn't, and the girls - Kristin and Cheryl, Christina and Kris and Allison and Laura and Randa, and of course Denise, always Denise - running in pain alongside me, laughing and crying and making the whole endeavor, yes, I mean it, fun, while I soak up the gorgeous solitude of a quiet Alabama morning.

 

 

 

 The 1989 SJCDS Cross Country Team, Orange Park, Florida

 

 

what excites me the most is that this is only the beginning

Since I launched Brave Mable on Etsy early last month, I've noticed a strong trend, browsing there and elsewhere, in the re-styling of quotes via graphic design and typography, digitally reproduced as 5x7 prints, or screen printed, hand-pulled, and sold as art, or home decor. Many of the quotes are well known, either attributed or simply familiar, like, "Do Not be Afraid to Fail, Be Afraid Not to Try." And many of them seem to be unattributed quotes said by the creator themselves, like, "I Just Want to Make Beautiful Things Even if Nobody Cares." Whether or not this is art is an argument I'm not making today, because today I see a deeper, more enriching thread beyond what is art? What I see is that a lot people out there are trying to figure out how to be happy. I have known a few folks who seem awfully dead set on remaining miserable, the ever punished victim. But the majority of us are looking for something transcending, or some small crutch to help us get over the hump; a quote to hang on the wall, modern design, easy to read and pleasing to view. 

So I've written about happiness before - it's a lifelong goal, to reach it, to obtain it, to never let it get away again. My personal favorite quote, which I have not seen yet re-purposed into slick digital art (maybe I'll give it a try) is ages old:

 

"Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence."

                                    - Aristotle

 

In High School the favored quote was:

 

"If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane."

                                    - Jimmy Buffet

 

So my tastes have evolved. Or at least my reading material.

Most of us at least began as happy beings. Along about the age of 6, when we begin to grasp the evidence and frequency of disappoints life promises, things start to get hard and challenges only prove greater as we grow older. Our minds are such powerful machines, motherboards to our emotional and physical operating systems. If we did not have memory would we not have misery? Isn't that what the film, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" argues?

Memory aside, I've come to a very simple conclusion, that reality as we "know" it is tenuous at best, subject to change in a millisecond and likely not a hair close to what we believe to be true anyway. Everything about reality boils down to our state of mind: misery, anger, love, happiness.

If you have never watched the documentary film "What the Bleep to We Know?" I highly recommend you do so at your earliest convenience. Watch it twice. It's a little far out, especially the first part of the film, but it attempts to explain the daily implications in this reality and role of quantum physics. It also explains, and this is the point I'm waxing, is that cell receptors correlating between emotions and brain function are trained and re-trainable. In other words, we can train ourselves to be happy.  

We inherently know this, that happiness is obtainable in this reality. Why else would we constantly, even unconsciously, look daily for inspiration, for some private motif we can put in our mind's pocket to have always with us?

And so the market for quotes on art expands. It's hard to knock them, when you get down to the straight motivation. It's all good.

Some of my recent favorites:

 

by Nastasia Cook

 

by Tess

 

by Emily Rooney

by Raw Art Letterpress

by albee 

And these images, my favorites, and truly inspired as well as inspirational, are from various compilations on the design blog, FromUpNorth.  (some of the images do not fit into this column. Click them to enlarge for better reading.)

 

 

shooting straight up at nothing

Visiting Grandmother's house is a little like high-end camping. The beds are narrow and hard, the sheets scratchy and age-stained, the foam pillows too round and bulky. The inside climate sways a bit too much with the season; too warm in summer, too cool in winter. There is one bathroom, adjacent to the kitchen and den, with a slatted door, so that if the occupier forgets to flip the fan switch, all manner of groans and effort are heard without trying to listen. One has to remember to ask if anyone needs to use the toilet before showering - showering: installed sometime in the early 90's, a fancy, 6-option massage head (still in place) where only a bath was available before - and hope others consider you when doing the same. And to drink? Mountain Dew, sweet tea or well water, rich in minerals and tasting of stone, perfectly drinkable, but leaves one homesick for the familiar flavor of chlorinated city water. I'm a city girl, born and raised in the largest metropolis in America (in land terms) in a spacious house with so many bedrooms and bathrooms my sisters and I never had to share. 

On every camping trip I've ever taken, some primitive, some outfitted with private tent, air mattress, clean linens and down comforter, toilets a hundred feet away, I've risen early, with the sun almost. But at Grandmother's we sleep straight through the morning hours, the heavy curtains always drawn to a cocooning quiet, staving off our temporary reality with closed lids. It's a time warp. 

This is the house my mother grew up in, shared bathroom and well water, with her father, mother, brother, and for some time, a Grandmother. My upper-middle class citified upbringing adorns my shoulder like a girl scout badge. 

I am named for my Grandmother Christine, which my own mother calls me only occasionally, in a gently mocking way, when I parrot, unconsciously, Christine's insistence that nothing she cooks (always a tremendous success from where we're eating) is ever quite right or even edible, or when I get caught in a cycle of obsessive out-loud thoughts. On the second day of our visit last week, a woman drove down the dirt drive, off the highway my Grandmother has lived on since 1956, turned around and left hurriedly, as if embarrassed for having made a wrong turn, or fearful someone might come out with a shotgun, being Georgia and all, the proud South. For half an hour Grandmother insisted she couldn't imagine who that was, why they didn't come in. "Maybe it was Lucille, but I cain't imagine she'd be back this soon." I don't know who Lucille is, but I think she's a neighbor friend. "It's just someone turning around, wrong driveway, Grandmother," I said. "We don't know her." This is how conversations go with Christine. They always have.

"Do you want lettuce on your sandwich?" she asks. "No thank you," I answer. "Huh?" "NO. THANK YOU!" 

Five minutes later: "I got lettuce in the drawer there if you want it." "No, I"m fine," as I bite into my lunch. "Huh?" "I DON'T WANT ANY LETTUCE. THANK YOU!" "You want some chips? I got chips there in the pantry." "No, thank you." She shuffles to the pantry, pulls out an array of chips. "I got Lays, Cheetos, I don't know if you like any of these." I say, "I'm OK. I don't want any chips." "Huh? I got Cheetos, you want some Cheetos?" "NO!"

Twenty minutes pass and she says, "I don't know who that was coming down the drive." But here we stop playing along and ignore her, put our noses into a magazine, or in more recent trips, our iPads. Maybe we eat a few Cheetos.

The day after the mystery driver turned around, lost, my Grandmother fished out an old .38 that had been resting in a dresser drawer for maybe ten, fifteen, twenty years, longer. We'd gotten on the subject of telemarketers and the calls she'd received from home security companies wanting to sell her an alarm system. Grandmother tells them no, no, no thank you. "And then the girl tells me," she says, recounting the conversation, "well what are you gonna do if someone breaks in?" Grandmother's voice is rising, with alarm and disgust, a voice we've heard countless times over anything from the boys who mowed the lawn or raked pine straw to arranging a visit with someone in a nursing home to baking cookies; "Now tell me how I'm supposed to bake cookies without tasting the batter!" She was always a phenomenal baker, but she's tired now, and diabetic. 

"What did you tell her?" we ask. We're interested in the conversation she had with the pushy security system sales girl, if only because it's a fresh tale. "I told her they'd have to carry them out!" We laugh. Christine is still feisty, still picks pine cones out of the yard, getting what exercise she can at 82. The conversation led, naturally, to a discussion of firearms, and did she have any in the house, we wanted to know. She didn't, my aunt, who lives next door, flies (and this is new since our last visit in August) a confederate flag over the horse pasture, took the shotgun and rifle a long time ago. "I don't want that stuff in the house," Grandma said. A few moments of quiet, then Grandmother plods off to the back of the house while Mother and I sit around the kitchen table, which we do for hours, as on every visit, taking turns playing Spill and Spell and listening to the list of cancer victims in Grandmother's life, who died, who's funeral she didn't go to last month, much of it we've heard already, earlier that morning maybe. It's like sitting around a campfire after dark, waiting out the hours until sleep takes over.

Grandmother returns to the kitchen with a rusty pistol, lodged firmly into it's holster, stuck.

"Mother?" Mom says. "Huh?" Grandma says. Mom and I exchange glances. "I thought you said there weren't any guns in the house." She's pulling hard to remove the revolver from the moldy holster now. "I forgot this was in there," she says. As she struggles with the piece, we both urge her to leave it alone. "Grandma, let Christie (my aunt) take care of that for you. She knows all about guns." "Huh?" And then the pistol is free of it's holster, the barrel loaded - I can see the shell butts from my seat across the table. "Grandmother," I plead, "why don't you just put it down and let Christie handle it." "Huh?" She's worried about it being loaded and want's to empty the barrel but doesn't know how, except to fire it. "It's too rusty. It could backfire, Grandma. It needs to be cleaned. It's dangerous."

And then she pulled the hammer back. Mom put her head down, as if to say, I have no part in this, and later claimed she's seen that determined look a thousand times, knew better than to get in the way. I come from a long line of stubborn folk. It's apparent, if you look close. Christine left the kitchen, heading for the yard, and I was happy to see her go, to be out of harms way.

POP, POP, POP, POP, POP. Our dogs, good travelers, protest from the den. Aunt Christie's dogs howl across the pasture.

As she walks back into the kitchen Mom asks, beating me to it, "feel better?"

"I didn't know a pistol could be so loud!"

Our camping trip turned wild west and all Grandmother can say is she didn't want a loaded gun in the house. Three minutes after the shootout the phone rings. It's my aunt, joking, "that ya'll shootin' over there?" She thinks it's the neighbors behind us. "Yeah," Christine says, deadpan, unemotional. "Just straight up," she says. "I had no idea a pistol could be so loud!" 

My aunt retrieved the gun later that evening, at my request, in part because I wanted to know what caliber, for story accuracy. "Sounded like a .38," my aunt said. She was right. I dug one of the .38 Special shells out of the trash for keeping, a memento, a reminder of who I could become.

 

I got to cook for Christine this trip, for the first time ever. There has always been a feast laid out for us when we visited and since she quit cooking we either pick up something from Publix or my Uncle feeds us. I insisted this time and she loved it: baked mac & cheese, roasted turnips in butter, and collard greens, which I grew and picked the day before. "I haven't had collards so sweet and tender in a long time," she said.

Aside from target practice ("just straight up"), she was quieter than usual. I can see how lonely a person can get, how resigned to waiting.  I know she enjoyed having us, having the dogs visit; they can be very entertaining. I hope she will let me cook for her when we make the 370 mile journey again in a few months. We can take another look through the handmade quilts she can't remember the origin of, and the old children's books that belonged to Mom or her siblings, and admire Grandmother's wedding suit with a twenty-inch waistline. We can sit around the campfire and try to make each other laugh, try to avoid the dismal tales of life, eat a little more, and together watch the hours tick by.

 

 

a word's worth

The sound of words, the syllables, the beat, the intermingling, interchanging of vocabulary throughout a work creates the texture of a written piece. The more varied the language, the richer, more luxurious the texture. Prose that demands I grab a dictionary to learn or clarify a meaning is prose well crafted. A writer who takes care to edit himself, to select the perfect - or better - word above the first to pop in the head, avoiding repetition within ten pages, or an entire novel, is, if nothing else, a well deserved tip of the hat to a cultural lexicon demonstrating sheer intelligence. There are simply too many beautiful words in the English language to let them all fall to waste. And as a writer, I just like the way certain words sound in my head, roll off my tongue, make a sentence wrap around itself like a serene trickling stream or, halt the passing eye with a shock of cold water.

Confession: I did not always feel this way for nomenclature. There was a time when vocabulary was so disinteresting to me I'd rather fail a Monday morning quiz and make up the grade later than spend thirty minutes memorizing just two more words to get me over the sixty-percentile hump. Even in college I dismissed Susan Sontag altogether, and specifically On Photography, because her discourse was beyond my education and required too much work on my part. I watched an interview with her once where she described a daily habit of reading the dictionary and discovering and adding new words to her glossary. I trust Ms. Sontag would have forgiven me for my prideful laziness. I'm all better now.

Growing up my parents were never quick - or slow - to hand-feed us the answers. If we asked the meaning of a word, be it homework or plucked from adult conversation, we were directed toward the massive, twenty-pound plus dictionary that lived on the counter of a wall covered bookshelf. If my father was in a mood he'd make a game of it. "You've got one minute to find the word and report back." I can hear him now, "report back." He always said it like that. However beneficial, it was an exhaustive game that encompassed the encyclopedia set as well, not too many years, the cusp maybe, before the Internet replaced printed resources. Always the late bloomer, my desire to learn was deep but reading and studying was not, and so my diminutive vocabulary remained somewhat curbed until my interest could catch up with my ability. I could blame my parents here for their frustrating refusal to simply answer a simple question: what does ________ mean? But I'll take the responsibility and admit I was perhaps too active to sit still long enough to focus on such a quiet matter. There were trees to climb, bikes to ride, etc, etc; a lengthy agenda of rousing diversions. 

 

Today I'd like to share, in keeping with the brief musing on language and vocabulary, a list of words I find satisfying, mostly for the sound they make in my head - a good a reason as any. Please, indulge.

 

Extrapolate 

Pellucid

Maudlin

Catatonic

Lithe

Torpid

Keen

Offal

Rebarbative

Bovine

Facetious

Troglodyte

Desinence

Conglobate

Frisson

Felicitous

Vex

Capricious

Impetuous

Onus

Volition

Lecherous

Sanguine

Toothsome

Extenuate

 

** Want to know what these words mean? I recommend this site for definitions.  

 

Hugs & Kisses!

 

the other 1% (keeping creativity alive)

Last week I wrote about the dawn of the new year, my excitement for things to come, my anticipation for a great year and, to quote myself (probably a bad idea but I'll do it anyway), I'm keeping this in mind:

 

"the first goal is to simply keep creating"

 

Well, the week did not roll out as smoothly as someone so rearing to go would have hoped. When it came to creating, the walls went up, the list of goals went out. I guess you could call it blocked, but most simply it was Life that straddled the tracks before my freight train of creative goodness. Migraines, make-me-sleepy-medication, family drama, Jonathan Franzen (seriously loving Freedom right now) - all excuses not to work, if one is so inclined to give up. Human beings are by nature creative beings. Some of us desire a life more tangibly creative, something akin to artistic expression, and it's too many of us with that desire who drop out, give up. Something like 99% quit. But those of us who allow the desire to lead us, who see life not as an excuse to stop creating but simply a minor intrusion to be compromised, the other 1%, there are ways of breaking through the block, finding again our groove, our sanity, our lifeline. This is how I broke through my block and lost only a half a day (which felt like a week) to non-productive wallowing.

Much thanks to Noah Scalin, author of Unstuck - link here - and Etsy for inviting Noah to write a post on getting unstuck - link here - and his fabulous idea of making pictures with leftover food. Yes, really. 

By Thursday last week I had not created a single new cartoon (which I realized Saturday was not true, I'd posted on Tuesday, which makes me wonder if my immune system is still so compromised that I've caught someone's short term memory loss), though it remains that I had specific ideas of what should be accomplished new cartoon-wise by Friday and so when late Thursday afternoon hit I was feeling panicky about the encroaching week-end. Over dinner that night with my mother, my sister, Catherine and her friend Michael, I proposed Noah's creative game, and lucky for me everyone wanted to play. We each blindly selected an animal name from a paper bag, then created that animal with the leftover food on our plates. They're more like abstracts of ideas of animals, but see for yourself:

 

Michael's carp

my chicken

Mom's otter (that looks like a bison)

Catherine's oyster (with pearl)

 

At Friday lunch I was enjoying the produce of stepping out of my focus and deadlines that I continued the game after sushi. Truth be told, I'd been struggling all morning to get the just-right amazed look on Mable's face.

 

amazed.

 

Before the food fun, Thursday afternoon, I berated myself for pacing the house, wondering how I was ever going to get back to work when I thought, maybe I'll just pick up a pen. I recently added a set of sanguine Pitt pens to my arsenal and chose my favorite point and started doodling. This is what I came up with:

 

The practiced hand reaps the rewards. On Saturday morning, still unable to come up with the perfect amazed face and totally blocked on a Valentines Day cartoon (going with the retail trend on that one) I doodled again. 

 

It's subtle, but notice the cut out on the right? Well, this is the final I got from this doodle. And I'm so looking forward to seeing this on a t-shirt!

 

 

What I learned from this exercise:

A. I've always been a doodler and doodling shall be respected and practiced, especially when stuck. And:

B. Step outside my delineated area. Try something different, test out someone else's technique. Just get the juices flowing!

 

I also highly recommend walks through the woods. The calm, quiet of nature replenishes and assuages fears and anxieties, the glimpse of something new, of life outside myself, the emotionless, motive-less order of the natural world helps put me back in place. A view of Friday's walk:

 

 

 

It's important to have goals and content for one's work. And deadlines. Every relevant deadline was met last week, in the end. But it's also important, crucial even, to take the ego out of the process, to avoid placing great expectations on the outcome. Genius is recognized only after a thing is finished, and maybe only days, weeks, centuries after at that. Only the process and motive truly account for merit. From practiced process and honed motives we can accomplish great things. And in the meantime, while waiting for genius to strike and settle, there's the stretch of limits, the challenges we set for ourselves, and the attitude we take toward overcoming obstacles. Be creative everyday. Be the other 1%.

 

 

i love 2012 (yes, already)

The sugar high has subsided from Christmas, the cold is on it's way out and I have about a bazillion ideas to jump on in the next few weeks, which is about as far as I can plan ahead. Too strict of rules, too much structure stifles my creativity rather than keep it in bounds. Somehow, and under deadline, projects manage to reach a completion point without whips and chains and blinders. This may be a fresh realization about myself, that despite my repeated efforts to create schedule after schedule, plans which never stick, I manage to accomplish all, especially when unencumbered by what I think I'm supposed to follow - schedules and plans. 

Actually I've been journaling a lot lately, reflecting on the year past and the months to come, assessing my progress and position to take advantage of the opportunities in front of me. I'm not much for New Year's resolutions. Change is constant and considered year round, as needed. Though I did move some furniture in the office over the weekend and the new arrangement feels decidedly promising, if only because it's different. What we believe is so relevant in our realities as to almost and very often displace what the reality might actually be, so that the desk in it's new spot might as well be covered in pixie dust for my positive emotion about the change.

I will say this for the New Year, the flip of the digit on the end; we've just traveled one full orbit around the sun, and closing my eyes I imagine the darkness of space, gravity suspended, cool and vast, and there's our little planet in all it's glory and defeat, gliding and turning around that gaseous orb of fire, another lap clocked. It's nothing short of miraculous. To zoom in close, break the atmosphere and focus down on our small lives, one in 7 billion, is to see the tiny speck of life we are in this immense structure in which we exist. How fortunate to be free of running that grand show. We get to improvise our own.

In the last month I have embarked on a new venture with the secondary goal of generating income from my creative endeavors (the first goal is to simply keep creating). Brave Mable, my cartoon alter-ego has landed on her own blog and Etsy shop and is off to a great start. The Typepad Shop, part of the blogging platform on which I run both this and Mable's blogs, has featured her shop among several other very impressive artists and creatives. It's a very exciting list to be on and feels, along with the re-imagined order of furniture, promising. But what appears most promising is the portfolio of work built in 2011, a base on which to build, proof in the theory that work pays off even if you're the only one to see it. There are no fresh starts in life. It's a continual process built day by day, one block atop another, math and vocabulary.

So with a promise to keep working, to keep my goal in sight, (and maybe get back to the gym), I embrace 2012 with much anticipation and excitement. I hope all of you have had a great bringing in of the New Annum and are looking forward to the months to come with a smile and determination to make every moment worth living.

 

with a box of tissues and a heap of faith

Disclaimer: I'm really, really congested today, even my ears feel like they're going to explode, so if my musings make little sense, forgive me, please. I'm living under mud, a mere hollow reed connecting me to the oxygenated world. 

 

As the written word tends to elude, I've lost the beautiful thread that weaved through my mind downstairs just moments ago while I waited for my Gypsy Cold Care tea to brew and now I have nothing but a complaint and a head full of mucus. I got a cold for Christmas - no infection, no fever, mind you, a mere flesh wound and a constant desire to lie down. On one side of my tea bag's tag the all-caps slogan reads, YOUR CHOICES WILL CHANGE THE WORLD. To lie down, or not to lie down? Is that a call to test character or what?

And this is how I endure a cold: I rationalize it's existence.

Two days ago I was feeling low and tired, which I attributed to my stressed out emotional state. I'd been thinking too much on a subject I couldn't solve and as a result, and as a cause, I'd made myself very angry, which rides shotgun with depression, of course. So I blamed my low energy on the matter and asked the universe for help, because I could not quit picking the scab on my own. As soon as I believed I was helpless, relief came. And then I got sick.

With the subtlest onset of symptoms I told myself they would clear up in a day. As the symptoms grew stronger I told myself it was my fault, that I had been focusing on the wrong matter lately, that I wasn't putting enough joy into the world, that I wasn't spending enough time creating. As I began to make amends with my frustration and anger I could see that I was smaller than the issue, smaller than the larger world and certainly not larger than my perceived opponent, mute and deaf to my private battle. I was humbled to realize again what little control I had and it seemed the humbling had been bestowed very physically (and not a teeny bit un-metaphorically) by debilitating my senses at one of the most inopportune times of the year; I hope there is still cake when I can again taste. I am smaller than this cold. There is not much I can do to change it. As my in-house physician says, "a treated cold lasts fourteen days and an untreated cold lasts two weeks." 

It may seem an odd way to re-discover my faith, through a common cold, but here it is, the distinct parallel I see. I know I caught cold because I breathed in or touched someone else's cold germs. Where and who and when I can not say. All the better for it, I suppose. It's just a cold; it just is. Wrong place and wrong time have nothing to do with it, though I can see a possible arrow pointing toward such an argument, that easy wisp of things just are is tempting and not entirely un-excercised in my personal journey. Maybe there's no reason for the cold, or my existence. It happened and here I am and I can only make the best of it, so I drink my tea and take baths with essential oils my loving sister lovingly made and drink plenty of juice and water and rest and try not to complain. I know it will end, that it's not forever, that I will get better. I know this not because I have a crystal ball but because I have faith in what I know about colds. 

There has been a lot of talk about atheism in my corner of the world lately, and probably a broader circle than that considering the death of Christopher Hitchens earlier this month. I've been a sometime reader of his column, a copy ofNotes to a Young Contrarian sits unread on my shelf, "looking much smarter than me" and his recent work God is Not Great impressed me very little, the usual arguments for atheism were not written for me - I've considered them already. His public personality, in any case, appeared ready and resigned to death, which is more than I can say for a lot of "believers" and there's no discounting a lifetime of work, of creating, which he did expertly. I was atheist for a time in my twenties. I was also very lost and lonely and largely unhappy. The two are connected but I won't venture to pick apart "how" here. Instead I'd like to muse on the freedom believing has given me, the freedom of my own burdens, ofmyself, in not having to carry the full weight andresponsibility.

I'm a relaxed Type A personality, or that's how I see myself anyway. A friend recently told me, "your tone is laid back, but in your mind it's pretty intense." Control is a thing I work constantly to release (no pun intended). Believing, knowing, everything is going to be alright is the sweetest release from that need to control. Recognizing I am smaller than the world, the universe, this cold, that I don't get to dictate completely the way life unfolds or how people behave is the best argument against atheism I have yet uncovered. This is not an argument for Him or an organization or The Book. I am an unaffiliated subscriber to an energy much, much larger than my tiny, self-absorbed world. And because I know that, because my faith tells me there's something greater, I can, on increasing occasion, release myself from my burdens and enjoy the gift of being without the pain of controlling it. I can ask for help when I need it, and I can sleep at night, trusting it will all work out. 

Christmas is a national federal holiday, with Madison Avenue at the helm. I love the food and gifts and family and traditions, the forced pause one day of the year. But what better time to consider the bigger picture, whether you include Christ or not, of our gift and trouble of existence, a faith that everything will turn out okay, that my cold will get better, with some time and help. I'll do all I can to heal it, all science directs me to do, but it's my faith and positive attitude that will make the trip, however miserable at times, worth being here.

 

 

let's make some good ones...

Every Christmas morning as a child I would creep downstairs in the wee hours to explore the riches left beneath the tree. Santa was always very good to us, boxes and packages wrapped in lovely designs, divided into three distinct sections: Amy, Catherine, Caroline. And there were always gifts unwrapped, sitting in plain sight, an invitation, a hint of what was to come.

One year, before Santa's cover had been blown, I discovered under my sister's section of the tree, a fabulous, musical gadget, long and rounded like a wand and decorated in colored buttons, each emitting a different note when pressed. I was instantly mesmerized and thought it should be mine. Now, I wonder if somewhere in my subconscious I had already considered there was no Santa Claus, because I can remember a distinct feeling of dishonesty and risk. With the toy tucked neatly under my arm, I sneaked down the hall, gently pushed open my parents bedroom door and stood at my mother's side. 

"Mom, Santa came!"

As she opened her eyes, after a few short hours of sleep, no doubt, I brandished the prize in front of her. "And look what he brought me!"

This must have been a test; the anticipation of a response lingered heavy between us. She looked into my little face and said with a direct tone, "I think Santa left that for Catherine." 

"Oh," I said. "I'll put it back."

This anecdote feels like a confession, an admittance of a lesser past self, one who valued getting more than giving. A child, yes, but Amy all the same. Joan Didion wrote an essay in 1966 titled "On Keeping a Notebook", an exploration of her old notes, overheard conversations, glimpses of people she met or encountered, tiny pieces of reality meant to evoke a memory of who she was then, whether she liked that person or not, they were all her selves. When we put aside the over-consumerism of the season, slough off the stress of parties, cards, gifts and baking, get still and reflect, nostalgia surfaces, parallel with the 2,000 year old birthday celebration this is all supposed to be. 

 

"The palest ink is better than the best memory"

- Chinese Proverb

 

Our memories are faulted, intertwined with perception and emotion when created and subject to the same mental imperfections, though likely altered in details, when recalled. Tradition is rooted in memory. How closely tied to memories, to our past selves is how connected we are to tradition. Breaking the tradition may re-write future memories.

There are several holidays in my memory spent alone, away from family, friends on the periphery only. They aren't sad memories, per se, as much uneventful, like any other day, indistinctive from the majority.

This year I'll be cooking Christmas Eve dinner for my family, though sadly without my youngest sister. I'll be in PJs and sipping a mimosa Christmas morning, lounging all afternoon. And I'm giving hand-made gifts (said the artist). We're not exactly breaking tradition at our house but we are creating good memories, where we spend time together laughing and relaxing and enjoying each other's company, and one where I don't try to steal my sister's gift. After all, December 21st 2011 begins the one-year countdown to doomsday, according to some readings of the Mayan calendar. Ladies and Gentlemen, this could be the Last Christmas. Let's make it a good one, eh? And make some notes, too.

 

- Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, love & joy, and wonderful new memories.