Posted on January 14, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative
In our house they are called “happy lights” because they make us happy. And, because they make us happy, happy lights can be found in almost every room of our house. They wind around the headboard of our bed, they outline the window in the sitting room, they wind around the aspen log in our dining room. They wind around the big branches in our living room.
On particularly dark days, after opening the shades, the first action of the day is to plug in the happy lights. All of them. It’s a task that requires moving room-to-room, intentionally inviting happiness into the space. It’s not a bad way to start the day. It’s not a bad practice to stumble around the house, half awake, and expect happiness to turn on with the lighting of the happy lights. And, not surprisingly, happiness meets the expectation.
At the end of the day the last act of closing-up and tucking-in the house is to unplug the happy lights. It’s become a ritual of gratitude, a thankfulness for the happiness brought by the lights. Our headboard happy light, always the first light of the day, is the last light we turn off before sleeping, the last whisper of appreciation for the day.
In these past few months I have grown more conscious and grateful of our happy light ritual. The intentional invitation and invocation of happiness, the deliberate practice of gratitude, seems more and more necessary amidst the national dedication to maga-animus. If there is nothing to be done about the indecent darkness descending on the country, we can, at the very least, invite light into our home, and perhaps share some small measure of the happiness and kindness that our happy lights inspire.
Posted on January 3, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative
Years ago I had a dream. It was visceral and has stuck with me. In my dream the world flipped upside-down. What was heavy was now light. What was difficult became easy. And vice-versa. What I once did effortlessly was suddenly impossible. I could move a mountain but I could not lift a paintbrush. I awoke from my dream both frightened and enthralled.
What is possible? What is impossible? These are good questions to ask on the threshold of a new year. Earlier this week I sat down to write some intentions for the new year and the page is still blank. I’ve decided it is best to leave the possibilities wide open. A blank page has become my intention.
This morning a quote by Noam Chomsky rolled across my screen: “If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope.”
I was entering 2025 with a sense of dread and then, in a matter of 24 hours, my picture for what’s possible completely flipped over. An unreachable opportunity sparked a series of heart-conversations. My heavy dread dissipated like fog meeting a warming sun. My eyes refocused on the essential instead of the periphery. I stepped across the dateline filled with hope.
Sometimes, when you least expect it, mountains move. Sometimes the world flips over. Sometimes dreams come true.
Posted on December 30, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
We arrive at another eve’s eve. This year we will slide across the line into 2025 with little-to-no fanfare. We’ll make pizzas and perhaps work on a puzzle. “Working-on-a-puzzle” will be our metaphoric theme for the upcoming year: how do we assemble these disparate pieces into a cohesive picture?
It’s difficult (for me) to move into the new year without trepidation for what’s ahead.
During Covid, with great intention, we made our home a sanctuary. A peaceful space. We created comfort-rituals like our happy-hour so we might ground our days in the positive, in something we looked forward to enjoying at the end of each day. In 2025 we are anticipating a return to the sanctuary since we believe the incoming kakistocracy is a deadly virus rolling across our nation. Social-distancing seems prudent.
This weekend we had a break in the weather and hit the trail. The textures in winter are gorgeous. Water rushing beneath ice, milkweed pods long since exploded and empty of their seeds, a stand of trees barren of their leaves, islands rising from a sea of ochre grasses. Silhouettes against the setting sun.
Among our holiday rituals is to watch the movie, Love Actually. In a famous scene (one among many) Rufus (Rowan Atkinson) giftwraps a gold necklace for a very impatient Harry (Alan Rickman). It is a classic collision of expectations and, even though I know what’s coming, it has me chuckling every time.
Enjoying rituals of comfort. Assembling our disparate pieces into a cohesive whole. Noticing the gorgeous. Returning again and again to tried-and-true sources of laughter. Moving into 2025 I am most grateful that we are adept at sanctuary creation.
Posted on December 25, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
“Whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.” ~ e.e. cummings
Last night, after the boys went to bed, we turned off all house lights, the only illumination was the tree. It is our Eve tradition. Take a breath after the hustle and bustle. Take a breath after all the meal prep and happy arrivals. Take a breath after the too-much-food, the lively conversation and laughter. Take a breath. Sit in quiet appreciation and feel-the-feeling.
We named our tree e.e. It is artificial and came to us from 20’s mother, E.E. This is e.e.’s third holiday with us. We delighted in the serendipity of the name. A poem by e.e. cummings made an appearance at our wedding. He is one of our favorites.
And, so, on this day of renewal, after a sweet night of quiet, the dawn brings with it a wish for all of us in the coming year; a bit of poem by e.e.:
“I will take the sun in my mouth and leap into the ripe air Alive with closed eyes to dash against darkness”
Posted on December 17, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
Since rarely in life have we had excess, we’ve become experts of austerity and yet we seldom feel wanton or that we are lacking in any way. Quite the opposite! We usually walk in rich abundance – the kind that is not connected to possession or attainment or access. We appreciate to our core the gift of being alive, our time together, the plenty that comes from our friendships, the affluence of our artistry. There is no end to the ideas we chase or the moments we cherish. For us, each walk on the trail is extraordinary. We never take it for granted.
The gift of our strict no-spending orientation is that, when we do afford ourselves a treat, the pleasure is amplified; a tiny moment elevated to the exceptional. For instance, yesterday while shopping for gifts we did something that we rarely allow ourselves to do: we stopped at a bakery, bought a pastry and a cup of coffee. We were giddy with excitement. We savored every bite. We cherished sitting in the warm cafe on a cold wet day and sipping a hot, bold cup of coffee. A seasonal sensual pleasure. We promised each other that someday we would do it again.
Our real riches are in our eyes, our seeing. Kerri’s eyes see beauty in everything. At the first dusting of snow she dashed outside to capture the textures and color on the deck. “Lookit!” she said, showing me her discovery, nose red from the cold.
My eyes see movement and connectivity. Busy streets often appear to me as a dance. In a past life I adored teaching because I could see ideas ripple and discoveries flow through the class. I adored watching audiences join in what I came to understand as a single heart beat. Perhaps that was what called me to the theatre. I am only now beginning to understand what calls me to paint.
We moved our old wooden glider, deck furniture, into our living room. A well-used, very old studio lamp, a treasure found at an antique sale for five dollars, serves as a reading lamp. Next to the glider is a tall branch, painted white, wrapped in happy lights and adorned with holiday crystals. It’s become a favorite place to sit. Our happy hour has migrated from the kitchen table to the living room glider where we can appreciate our holiday decorations and watch the world pass by outside the front window.
‘I love it here,” she says, giving Dogga a nibble of cracker. Me, too. I love it here.
***
After writing my post, while waiting for Kerri to finish hers, I opened my email and read the latest of Maria Popova’s The Marginalian:
“The destination, rather than a place, is a state of being — the recompense of paying everything in our path the gratitude and reverence it is due for merely existing. For we forget, too, that dignity — this deepest reverence for being — is not something we can ever have for ourselves unless we accord it to everything and everyone else.”
Posted on December 9, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
At the top of the stairs on the second floor of our house is a bulletin board of photographs. We assembled it in 2019 when we took a job on Washington Island. We would be far away from family and friends and hoped the photo-board would help us stay connected to home. It’s funny to me now, I rarely looked at the bulletin board when we were on the island but five years later, firmly ensconced back at home, I pause on the stairs every single day and study it.
It’s the photos of my dad that stop me. In order to function on island we needed a second vehicle. My dad was no longer able to drive so he gave us his truck. The photos were taken when we flew to Colorado to get the truck. We call it Big Red. It was a blue-blue-sky day. Kerri and I were just about to begin the long drive back to Wisconsin. Kerri took some pictures of my dad and me standing next to Big Red.
He died in 2021. Those few photos are among the last I have of him. They are certainly among the last taken when he knew who I was; he was far down the road of dementia on that blue-sky Colorado day.
I stop on the stairs and study the photographs because I knew on that day that I might never see him again. I knew that his time on earth was short. I was fully and completely present with him when Kerri took the photographs. It was sublime and painful. And, I can access the fullness of his presence the moment I look at the photograph. It never fades.
I stop at the top of the stairs to hang out a few minutes with my dad but there is a greater gift in that blue-blue-sky photograph: it is a reminder that those moments happen every day. It is a reminder not to miss it, that these moments are also fleeting. Cooking meals together. The way the Dogga parading with his candy-cane-toy every time we dial the phone. Our slow cleaning out of the basement, playing Rummikube with 20, sitting under the quilt writing blog posts on a cold Wisconsin day, the chimes calling us back to this, our moment. It’s what we have. It’s precious. It’s all we have.
Posted on November 29, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
The wind arrived late last night shaking the leaves free from their grip on the limbs. They are late to fall this year. The chimes rang, announcing the leaves parachute-esque descent to the ground. Dogga played the role of sentinel, sitting on the deck, watching, making sure nature dropped her color in an orderly fashion.
Their was laughter in our house last night. In a surprise last-minute announcement, Craig and Justin arrived for Thanksgiving dinner. We couldn’t have been more pleased. Luckily, we’d made a big pot of Guinness stew and mashed potatoes so there was more than enough. Warm bread, too. And wine. Salted caramel ice cream and blueberries for dessert.
More than enough.
Roger used to regularly ask, “What is sufficient?” For him it was a meditation on how to live a good life. Sufficiency. Knowing what is ample is necessary in order to recognize abundance.
Crawling beneath the quilt at the end of the day, Dogga asleep at our feet, we sighed, “What a great day.”
“Beyond sufficient,” I thought, a gratitude wrapped in a memory of my now distant friend. It was much, much more than enough.
Posted on November 28, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
“In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.” ~ Krishnamurti
In the United States of America, today is the day we give thanks. Imagine it! 364 days dedicated to dog-eat-dog grousing with one day set aside for thanks-giving. Envision for a moment a flip of our dedication: a single day devoted to complaining-and-selfish-taking with the entire rest of the year committed to gratefulness and appreciation.
Is it possible for gratitude and cherishing-others to be the norm?
Tom Mck’s grandfather told the story of two Civil War veterans who owned adjacent ranches. One vet fought for the north and the other fought for the south. They shot at each other every day creating a dangerous situation for the whole community since their ranches were on the road to town. Finally, no longer willing to dodge bullets just to go to the market, the community brought the two men together and negotiated an accord with them: the vets agreed to shoot at each other only one day a year, the same day each year. Their fellow citizens knew not to go to market on the auspicious day.
I thought about those two men this morning. Their entire reason-for-being was to hate each other. They gave to each other the great gift of purpose. An unspoken detail of the story, perhaps the most important aspect of the whole story, is this: none of the bullets they fired over many years ever hit the mark; they were either terrible shots or they didn’t really want to eliminate their reason-for-being. They intentionally missed. They loved to hate their neighbor.
It’s a complex game we play, is it not? The tale of the two Civil War vets is a story for our times.
Is the great-gift-of-purpose as easily given to loving, uplifting and supporting our neighbors? Is our capacity for generosity and consideration really so limited? Is there only enough for a single 24 hour period?
Is aggression and hate really more magnetic and satisfying than kindness and love?
Our nation chooses this day as Thanksgiving. Kerri’s and my wish for this troubled land on this day of laying down our weapons: a genuine flip of our dedication.
Posted on November 20, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
“The future depends on what we do in the present”. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
It was a great comfort to return to the trail. After so many weeks of sickness, too weak to do the dishes, it felt like a homecoming. A long anticipated visit with an old friend.
Over time the yellow loop of the Des Plaines River Trail has become the place we walk when we need to sort out life’s challenges or to take a break from questions that nag. It is a loop of perhaps 2 miles and we generally walk the loop a few times. It is familiar and never the same – always changing, always uplifting, just like the people who surround us – our chosen-family.
As we stepped out of the car and onto the loop it occurred to me that we are much like our crazy Aussie dog: he runs rowdy circles when life’s excitement arises. We walk our loop for much the same reason.
A return to a well-known trail in a world that had dramatically changed since our last walk. I went to sleep on election night, fevered and aghast, knowing that the rest of our lives would be shaped by the nation’s selection of fascism over democracy, the abandonment of common decency. Our step back onto the trail was an attempt to reconnect to health: physical, mental and spiritual. Our step back onto the trail was an attempt to begin sorting through the question, “What now?”
“What now?” We walk. Just like we did before Covid. Just like we did before the election. We stand in the November sun and bask in what it has to offer. We delight in the deer when they show themselves. We regain center and root firmly in it. We use our voices and our artistry to do what the arts do best, what we’ve always done: open hearts and minds, point the way to a common center.
And so, on quaky legs, we walk to get stronger. We hold hands. We marvel at late autumn’s vibrant color, grateful for the moment we share. We refresh our hearts and spirit. We bow our heads and lean into the icy wind.
Posted on November 15, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
The birds on a wire brought my Periwinkle book to mind. Context is everything. It is now as relevant as the day I wrote it:
Peri Winkle Rabbit was lost.
All the other animals were lost, too!
There had been a fire. Peri Winkle was asleep when grandpa Harry Winkle Rabbit shook her awake and said, “RUN!”
Peri ran. At first, Peri ran with her mom and dad, her sisters and brothers and grandpa Harry Winkle, too.
All the other animals were running, too, the deer and the bears and the foxes and the squirrels. Some were running in circles but most just ran away from the fire.
It was confusing. There were so many legs and paws running this way and that. Peri could no longer see her parents. She couldn’t see her brothers or sisters. Even grandpa Harry Winkle Rabbit was nowhere to be found.
Peri stopped and got knocked down. She hopped back up and called out for her mother. She called for her father. She couldn’t see them anywhere.
A great paw scooped her up and she was suddenly eye to eye with a bear!
“This is no time for still standing, little ears!” said the bear.
“I can’t find my family,” squeaked Peri Winkle Rabbit. The bear was holding her very tight.
“We’ll find your family, little ears,” puffed the running bear, “But first we have to find a place safe and beyond the fire.”
The bear held Peri Winkle Rabbit close to his chest. Peri could hear the boom-Boom of the bear’s big heart as he ran swiftly away from the flames. Peri Winkle Rabbit felt so sad and so tired, she couldn’t help it when she fell fast asleep.
“Good morning, little ears!” The bear smiled as Peri blinked open her eyes.
“Where am I?” asked Peri.
“I don’t rightly know, “ said the bear, “but we’re now safe and far from the fire.”
That’s how Peri Winkle Rabbit came to be lost. She looked around and saw that the forest was gone! The other animals looked and they saw it too. All the green was now black and the mighty trees were charcoal twigs twisted in ruins on the ground.
The animals started to cry. Even the big bear cried. Peri cried, too. Together, they made lots of loud crying sounds and it felt good to wail the loss of their forest home.
And then, they each told their stories of escape from the fire. They told of their lost homes and missing family and friends. They told the stories of their cuts and their bruises, their fears and their worries. They told of how they came to be together, in that place at that time. Peri Winkle Rabbit told her story, too.
“What do we do now?” a red fox asked, which was exactly the question that Peri Winkle Rabbit was thinking!
No one said a word for a very long time. They looked at each other, all covered in soot, dirty and singed and ruffled and tired.
“Well,” a great ram began, “I am sure footed, I can help carry what’s needed.”
A hawk landed on the ram and said, “I can see far away and can help find your missing families and friends.”
The great bear said, “Yes, and I have a nose that can smell good smells for many miles, I will help supply all of my new friends with food!”
“I can gather nuts!” cried the squirrel, rubbing his nose with his hands.
“I have great ears!” cried Peri Winkle Rabbit! “I can hear what is needed and help find who can do it!”
And all the animals offered their great gifts in service to their new friends. They slowly began to do what was needed with whatever they could find. They found water and food. They found shelter from the rain. They looked for their families. They made new friends.
“Remember, a forest must grow back slowly, one day at a time,” said the bear when Peri felt impatient.” Our job is to help it grow.”
“It is all different than before,” said Peri, suddenly missing her old home.
“Yes,” said the bear. “We are all different now, little ears. The fire has changed us forever.”
Peri Winkle Rabbit wrinkled her nose.
The great bear smiled and hugged her close, saying, “Now might be the time for still standing, little ears, we don’t want to miss the lessons of the fire.”
So together Peri Winkle rabbit and the great bear sat very still, listening to the forest and thinking about all that had happened. And though she didn’t quite know where she was, Peri Winkle Rabbit wasn’t lost anymore.
A one-copy book made for a child who lost their family during Hurricane Katrina. I’ve never published the full text but thought it was time. I included photos of a few of the pages.
Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora
The Direction of Intention 