Flawed Wednesday | The Direction of Intention

Light A New Hearth Fire [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on October 31, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Even during the summer we call it the Halloween tree. An ancient oak, gnarled and twisted, surely a home to gnomes and sprites, a rest stop for wandering spirits. An inciter of wild imagination. It watches our passage through the seasons, our walks though the woods.

Halloween has a history, an origin story. It has evolved and changed from a sacred to our now secular celebration. It once marked the end of the year, the line between the end of harvest time and the onset of dark winter, the day when the boundary between the living and the dead became soft and permeable. A liminal day when the future could be seen and told. Ghosts returned. People donned costumes to fool the spirits and speak for the future. Mischief was made. The hearth was stamped out and then reignited from the communal flame. With the sunrise came the new year and the boundary between worlds and the future was restored.

Costumes and carved pumpkins. Neighbors coming out of their houses for trick-or-treating. Corn mazes and haunted houses. We are not so different, not really. In this way, whether we acknowledge it or not, through our coming together to carve scary faces, through our meeting on the street to watch our children walk the neighborhood and perpetuate this yearly ritual, through our parties and dressing up, we light a new hearth fire to keep us warm and full of hope through the cold months of dark winter.

k.dot at the halloween tree

read Kerri’s blog post about THE HALLOWEEN TREE

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Perspective, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: dark winter, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, gnome, halloween, halloween tree, hearth, history of halloween, imagination, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, New Year, sprite, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

Put It On A Post [on Not-So-Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on October 23, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

littlefreelibraryBOX copy

Paul often told the young actors he taught: never underestimate your power to influence or impact another person’s life. Stepping onto a stage comes with a responsibility. I loved his advice and thought it was much more universal and should be heeded everyday. What you do matters and it matters in ways you probably will never understand. We are always and in all ways participants in the butterfly effect.

In a short walk around our neighborhood you’ll discover several Little Free Libraries, an idea that came from Todd Bol as a tribute to his mother. She was a lover of books and his idea to honor her caught on like wildfire. In 2009 he built a little schoolhouse shaped box, put books in it, and stuck it on a post outside his house. He invited his neighbors to borrow them. He had no intention of creating a worldwide movement yet in the 9 years that have elapsed since he built his box, Little Free Libraries have popped up in over 80 countries. It became a movement. An entity with a mission. People borrow books. People share books and ideas. Neighbors stop and check out what might be new. The boxes themselves are often little pieces of art that Joseph Cornell might have assembled. Little Free Libraries are community connective tissue.

Todd Bol died last week. It seems only right on this Not-So-Flawed Wednesday to stop and take note of the very big ripple one small box on a post set into motion.

read Kerri’s blog post about Todd Bol

book/hire/buy

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Possibility, Uncategorized | Tagged: books, butterfly effect, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, impact, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, literacy, Little Free Library, mattering, readers, small actions, small things, studio melange, the melange, Todd Bol | Leave a comment »

Listen To You’re The Wind [A New Song on Not-So-Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on October 17, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

In our house we mark significant and auspicious dates (actually, we think all days are auspicious). Today is one of those. I never knew Kerri’s father. Her mother, Beaky, had a profound impact on my life during the 18 months that I knew her. Beaky and I united in two common causes: 1) To convince Kerri that her naturally curly hair was beautiful and to stop blowing her curls away, and 2) To convince Kerri to share with the world her music, those incredible unrecorded pieces – some of her best work – that live only in a notebook by the piano. Today is an auspicious day! It would have been Beaky and Pa’s 75 anniversary. It is also the day that Beaky gets one of her wishes (hint: Kerri’s hair is still straight so…more work to do).

mom and dad youre the wind copy

read Kerri’s blog post about YOU’RE THE WIND

you’re the wind ©️ 2005 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Family, Flawed Wednesday, Love, Uncategorized | Tagged: anniversary, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, love, new song, parents, relationships, remembering, remembrance, society6.com/davidrobinson, society6.com/kerrisherwood, wedding anniversary, you're the wind | Leave a comment »

Stand In A Greater Story [on not-so-flawed Wednesday]

Posted on October 10, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Three years ago today Kerri and I were married. It was the single best day of my life. We were married on 10/10 and the ceremony began at 11:11 exactly. Our friends tease that the reception started, not mysteriously, at 12:12.

The great advantage of a second marriage is that you feel no obligation to meet expectations or obey any “should-dos.” It was a blue jeans wedding. We wore black (like we do every other day of the week) and matching Frye Boots. Our ceremony was a storytelling. Kerri wrote a song for me. There were lots of hugs. A ukulele band played us out and we spontaneously skipped down the aisle just like we’d skipped out of the airport on the day we met.

At the reception (12:12 on the dot) we had a food truck serving burgers and sweet potato fries. There’s a back story to burgers and fries but I’ll save that for another day. It’s enough to note that the food truck wasn’t a random idea but part of a greater story – as with everything we planned for our passage ritual into togetherness. We had Yamaha’s daisy cupcakes and MaryKay’s brownies. We had hula-hoops and kick balls. We danced until after dark and moved to the beach for a bonfire. So many special people came from all over the country to celebrate with us. A legion of friends and family helped us make it happen; our wedding was (and still is) the love equivalent of a barn raising.

A greater story. Second chances do happen. Broken roads sometimes lead to vibrant gardens rich with lessons, endless appreciation of the small things, and a sense of utter amazement that this is where life brought me. Brought us. I was wrong to write that 10/10/15 was the best day of my life. In truth, it marked the source of a river of best days. Each an anniversary, a day of life in the story of ‘us,’ a greater story.

read Kerri’s blog post about FRYE BOOTS ON A RED CARPET

love it

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Love, Uncategorized | Tagged: anniversary, bonfire, burgers and fries, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Food trucks, Frye Boots, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, ritual, second chances, studio melange, togetherness, us, wedding, wedding day | Leave a comment »

Appraise It [on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on October 3, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

HippieTomChairs cropped copy 2

The first time we visited Hippie Tom’s Serendipity Farm, Kerri said, “It’s like being inside someone’s disease.” The farm is a hoarder’s dream. Stuff piled upon stuff. Stuff packed into corners, hung from rafters, tucked under shelves. Most of the stuff is exposed to the heat and cold, rain and snow. Having the stuff is more important than the caring for the stuff, a 3-D philosophical statement. Certainly there are treasures to be found, curiosities that are heartier than the mildew and rust or perhaps have not yet been on the farm for a cycle of seasons.

In the barn there is a room for chairs. Chairs stacked to the ceiling though I use the term ‘stacked” loosely. Piled, perhaps. It reminds me a scene post tsunami, what remains after the waters have retreated. The artifacts of lives-now-gone. It would be a brilliant set for a play, metaphors abound. The sickness of acquisition. Or, perhaps it is not sickness so much as the inevitable destination of stuff after the story connection is lost.

The power of story. The value is never in the stuff, it is in the shared narrative invested into it. A diamond has no value without people to appraise it.

Once, I visited Georgia O’Keeffe’s home and studio in Abiquiu, New Mexico. It was spartan. And I loved it. A few chairs. And, oh-my-god the paintings. The view and vibrant connection to the natural world. It was like being inside someone’s happiness. So many years after her passing it felt alive – a place of life. That’s my appraisal.

Hippie Tom loves his farm, I’m sure. As for me, I think I’d rather walk the path with Georgia. Less stuff. More life.

read Kerri’s blog post about STUFF

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: accumulation, appraisal, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, disease, Georgia O'Keeffe, happiness, Hippie Tom, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, metaphor, story, studio melange, stuff, the melange | Leave a comment »

Look For The Exit [on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on September 26, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Roger's Park Feet copy

Two decades ago, living in Los Angeles, on a beautiful crystal clear morning, I walked to the corner market to buy a Sunday newspaper and milk for coffee. With my milk and newspaper in hand, I circled the store pretending to shop with the rest of my fellow shoppers. We delayed checking out because another customer, enraged, was having a heated argument with the cashier. We were afraid and unwilling to step in the way of an escalating confrontation. When the angry man slapped the counter, the rest of us – the entire group of shoppers – spontaneously hit the deck. We thought it was a gun shot. Laying on the tile floor looking at the panicked faces, I had a realization. I must be afraid all of the time; low-grade fear. Gun violence was so prevalent that it was my first thought, my first expectation, not the last. And then, the most remarkable thing happened. We slowly stood up, brushed ourselves off, picked up our items from the floor and put them back into our baskets – and never said a word to each other. We paid for our purchases. We pretended it didn’t happen. Fear is like that.

“California is ten years ahead of the rest of the nation.” At the time I heard this sentiment often. “If it’s happening here it will be happening in the rest of the nation within a decade.”

I am now twenty years beyond my corner market floor dive. I routinely look for the exits when I enter a movie theatre. We avoided attending open air concerts after Las Vegas. School shootings and workplace massacres are more common than not. There is training offered by experts on what to do if you are caught in a mass shooting. The palaver rolling out of Congress is like a dusty old play. We know the script and it goes nowhere.

“There’s been another one,” we say and shake our heads, upset that a few weeks ago we’d walked the street where the latest young man was killed. He was going to the store. A student who needed to buy hangers. “It could have been us.” And, so, once again, we pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off, put the items of our day back into our basket, realizing, not too late, that it did happen. It is happening to us.