Posted on September 30, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative
The good news is that, eventually, late becomes early and my adorability is magically restored. Kind of like a reverse pumpkin in the Cinderella story. Or, perhaps a more accurate analogy, like a werewolf during the dark hours, I metamorphose back to a less-loud-adorable-man-shape with the sunrise.
Mostly, I am grateful that her memory is short and with the sunrise she seems to forget the werewolf-in-me. Either that or she’s imagining or dreaming the snoring (I’ve never heard it so I am understandably filled with doubt). What matters is I awake each morning from a restful sleep and look at her with adoring eyes. Come to think of it, that may be why my adorability is magically restored. Not magic, it’s an adoration loop!
Posted on September 29, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative
If there is a metaphor for Kerri and me, it is this. A seedpod filled to bursting, ready to release into the world an abundance of the new.
We write more than most people care to read. I’ve calculated that, at this point, we’ve written the equivalent of ten full length novels. We have readers all over the globe – yesterday someone in Mongolia showed up. “Why would someone in Mongolia want to read what we write?” we asked, delighted. No matter. It’s what happens when you love what you are doing.
Yesterday, in a fit of no-duh, I reformatted the Smack-dab page on our site so it might be readable (I’m not sure what took me so long…) and I was astounded at our output. I fell into it. Smack-dab joins the comic canon of Chicken Marsala, Flawed Cartoon, At the Door, Flip, and the KnowNow series.
We love to share what we love. Sometimes I see-just-for-a-moment that our ordinary is extraordinary.
We have the third of Beaky’s books to produce. Kerri’s written a children’s book that someday she will allow me to illustrate. I have new ideas every day that get written on slips of paper and tossed in a bin called Someday.
Our Roadtrip is ready to roll and join The Lost Boy in our canon of plays performed together. I am working on a draft of a new play that I’ve been thinking about for years. I allow myself an hour of space away from the job hunt to write or work on a scene. One scene a week. I’m awaiting the decision whether or not my Last of the Old Gods will be rescheduled into the PCO season. It’s a timely story. It needs performing and I need to perform it.
Kerri stares at her piano. There is so much more music to make. I know it. She knows it. I can personally attest to the fact that some of her best vocal pieces have yet to be recorded. I am the sole recipient of such riches.
Each day I stand in my studio and close my eyes and feel the pulse. There are so many more paintings to paint.
Years ago, Joyce, staring wide-eyed into my future, said to me: You express what is true. You reach people through their hearts. You help them to believe.
It’s not a career. It’s an imperative. Seedpods. Ready to burst.
Posted on September 28, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative
Following the heavy rains, the mushrooms appeared. They came in all shapes and sizes with colors ranging across the spectrum, yellows and reds, taupe and black.
There’s something other-worldly about the mushrooms. They seem like alien creatures. Like cicadas, living deep in the soil until one auspicious day, when the conditions are just right or their inner imperative whispers, “Now,” they step into the moist air, appearing as if from nowhere.
Some look like a colony of creatures on the march. Some look like gnome condos. Some take impossible architectural shapes, sound receivers listening to the pulse of deep space. Some form a perfect circle, a commons of strange beings.
Posted on September 27, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative
I doubt that our bird feeder experience is different than most people. The chipmunks and the squirrels get most of the bounty and the birds play clean-up.
In another life, were I to aspire to be an acrobat or gymnast, I’d study the amazing antics of chippies and squirrels. They scale the impossible pole. They leap the impossible leap. And then they fill their cheeks to bursting, kick gobs of seed to the ground, and fling themselves – fully loaded – into space and somehow catch a limb or bit of fence and escape into the great unknown. They are fearless.
The birds alight on the feeder, too, but mostly they find their fortune on the ground.
Over the summer, directly beneath the feeder, corn plants appeared. We let them grow for a while. I confess, the corn made us smile. “We have corn!” we’d giggle at the absurdity even though the origin was obvious. Apparently we are easily amused.
And then the corn plants sprouted across the yard. A stalk grew right next to Breck-the-Aspen-Tree. And then we found a few lively plants pressing through the tall grasses in the front yard. We’d unintentionally set into motion a small-sample-experiment of corn migration as carried by birds and mini-beasts.
Across many cultures, corn has long been a symbol of prosperity and representative of the cycle of life. It’s easy to understand why. The fields are magical places. In our film mythos, baseball teams of yore emerged from the corn, bringing good fortune to the family that built a field on their farm. Giver of dreams. Fulfiller of hope. Ancestors return to the corn.
In addition to the summer of the bunny and the surprise frog-named-Hope, this is the summer of corn-on-the-move. As the leaves begin to turn, as the harvest comes in, we take comfort knowing that we are surrounded by so many symbols of plenty.
Posted on September 26, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative
The sun had set. The pond lights aglow. The night was quiet with occasional bursts of the cicada chorus. We were exhausted from the day. I saw its silhouette when Dogga ran his usual circuit by the pond. It leapt across the light and plopped into the water. A frog.
“What are you doing?” Kerri asked as I jumped from my chair.
“But it’s late September!” I said. She narrowed her eyes, my reply too random for synapse connection. “I just saw a frog!” I announced and she was instantly by my side. We stayed by the water for several minutes, searching, but saw no further sign. “I didn’t imagine it,” I whispered. “I saw it. We have a frog.”
“I know.”
I’d like to say that we didn’t need some sign of hope, some whisper of encouragement, but it would be a lie. This unlikely frog, coming so late in the season, seemed like a sign or at least we decided to make it so. “Things are going to change for the better,” she said. I nodded. I was so tired I wanted to blubber with giddy-frog-inspired-relief.
“I’ll take my hope anyway I can get it,” I said.
“That’s what we should name it!” she replied. “Hope.”
Yes. Hope. A silhouette flashing across the light on an otherwise quiet dark night. A leap. A glimpse. And suddenly, anything is possible.
Posted on September 25, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative
We open the garage, push the VW Bug out into the sunlight for its annual washing. It’s a yearly ritual. After cleaning the garage and scrubbing the Bug, we push it back into the garage and cover it like a sacred object (it is).
This was Kerri’s first car. Her parents bought it when they vacationed in Europe in the 70’s. They shipped it back to the states. After a time, they “sold” it to her. It was light blue then. Now, it is titanium white.
It hasn’t run in the decade that I’ve lived here but that is of no matter. It is filled with stories. It is filled with connection to her parents. She’s walked up to line a few times, thinking she should sell it to someone who’ll fix it up, get it running again. She steps back from the line, “Not yet. Not yet.” After all, it’s not simply a car that she’d be selling.
“Maybe I should take pictures of it, make it into a Shutterfly book. Then I’d have the memories,” she says, suds to her elbows, as she gives the VW Bug its yearly bath. This, too, is part of the ritual. Imagining it gone. Imagining letting it go.
“That’s a good idea,” I say, playing my part in the ritual.
She climbs in the driver’s seat, releases the brake. “Okay!” she says and waves to me. I put my shoulder into it and push the Bug back into the garage. Her connection to her mom and dad, their stories, her stories, safely tucked in for another year.
Posted on September 23, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative
Training manual for an artist’s life: there are times of plenty. There are times of pain. In the times of plenty it is impossible not to know there will be times of pain. In times of pain, it is impossible not to believe that there will be times of plenty. The tide rolls in. The tide rolls out (just as in every other life).
The results? There are two that accompany both times of plenty and times of pain. 1) The ever-present weird comparison. This meal = a week’s groceries. The weird comparison is probably why we love to cook at home. And we do. We love it. 2) The unassailable hope. It’s an exercise in focus-placement. It’s never really about the cost; it’s about focusing on the experience. We regularly split a burger and a glass of wine whether in times of pain or times of plenty. We regularly love every minute.
Pain and plenty are both worthy experiences on the full palette of life. We are capable of savoring a side salad. We laugh all the way home because the tip is often the most expensive portion of our bill (our daughter and my mother did serious time as wait-staff and we know the value of a great tip).
Loving both ends of the spectrum simply means that we are fully loving life. And we are. It’s not really about the food anyway.
Posted on September 22, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative
The sound of the tree cracking sent us scurrying. We didn’t know if the falling branch was above us so it was best to move until we could locate it. Fifty feet behind us and well off the trail, an enormous branch collapsed, snapped, fell, and broke into several pieces. “What are the odds that we’d be here to see it fall?” Kerri asked. “I wonder what it means when you see a limb or tree fall?”
We Googled the symbolism and, not surprising, it’s either a good omen or a bad omen. It depends on what you choose to believe. It might not mean anything at all. To re-use a favorite quote from Alan Watts,“The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity, and it’s really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad.” We decided the falling limb was a terrific sign of positive changes on the horizon.
There’s a sigh of relief that comes when you realize that meaning isn’t found, it is made. It is given. We are, all of us whacky humans, in every moment, giving meaning to our experiences. Is it good or bad? That depends on what we choose to see. The real magic happens when the measuring stick of meaning is not based on a polarity. There are infinite colors available between good and bad.
A chance meeting happens because of a missed plane. The loss of a job opens new avenues of possibility. A closed road leads to an amazing discovery. We found a lost puppy on the side of a county road because we made a detour to avoid road work. My heart blew wide open when that puppy leapt into my arms. “We were meant to come this way,” agreeing on the meaning we wanted to make.
Earlier on the trail we found a blue jay feather. The blue bird of happiness. A sign of abundance and healing. Of course, it might also signal the opposite. “I think I’ll go with abundance and healing,” I said.
“Me, too,” Kerri agreed. “Why not?”
[If you want your heart to blow open, listen to Kerri’s THE WAY HOME. It gets me every time]
Posted on September 21, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative
20 calls me The Tetris Master because I can pack a lifetime of odd-shaped accumulation into the smallest moving van. I have an innate understanding of space. In other words, I am spatial; I feel space.
The first time I stepped into the silo I felt an immediate sense of peace. It was like a little round chapel with a soaring ceiling. Cool air on a hot day. The chair placed at the center of the circle was inviting but I knew I better not sit there. I’d want to stay. I’d fall into the peace. There were too many people moving through the barn. Falling into peace, like falling into a deep meditation, is internal and best done in private.
The silo reminded me of the faerie circle. Barney showed me where it was and told me, “This is your place.” He was right. I sat in the center of the circle of trees and was immediately transported.
It had been years since we visited the gardens and I’d forgotten about the silo. When we entered the barn to look at the antiques, soaps, and clothes on display, I felt the rush of remembrance. Stepping into the cool air, the carpet and single chair were just as I remembered. So was the peace of the circle.
There were less people so I lingered for a moment or two. “Someday I’m going to sit in that chair,” I said to no one listening. I smiled at the notion: and wouldn’t this world be better if we all had a place, a space, like a magnet, that pulled us into our peace?
Posted on September 20, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative
“We are fragile creatures, and it is from this weakness, not despite it, that we discover the possibility of true joy.” ~ Desmond Tutu, The Book of Joy
The heart-leaf lay on its side. Light peaked through its cracking surface. I was afraid to touch it lest it crumble in my fingers.
Only a few short months ago it was vibrant green, connected, durable. It’s destiny was -and is – as certain as mine. My surface is beginning to crack. Only a short time ago I felt myself vibrant. I thought of myself as indestructible. I am, and always have been, on my way to brittle.
It is this very fact that reminds me to slow down, to turn and feel the sun on my face. It is my limited time on earth that prompts me to lay on my side on warm grass so I might see the full beauty of the delicate tilted heart. To feel the warm hand that squeezes mine.
The Direction of Intention 