Have A Constitutional [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 2, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Have you not noticed that love is silence? It may be while holding the hand of another, or looking lovingly at a child, or taking in the beauty of an evening. Love has no past or future, and so it is with this extraordinary state of silence.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

As the evening cools the heat of the day, we look at each other, no words need be said, stand, hold hands and walk out the gate. In another era, they called this kind of evening stroll a “constitutional.” Walking at days end is good for your constitution, your health.

I’ve learned it’s good for my mental health. All of the energy swirling around inside my brain channels down and out through my feet. Fifteen minutes into our stroll, I take a deep breath. I sigh. The last swirl spirals out. With a clear mind, I relax. I squeeze Kerri’s hand. The beauty of the evening flows in. I can see beyond what I think.

We walk a loop through the neighborhood that winds toward the shore, past the beach house where we held our wedding reception. We follow the path through the park, emerging onto First Avenue along the row of houses overlooking the lake, by Jim and Linda’s old house. Echos of laughter. Good times gone by.

Sometimes we talk. Sometimes not.

The other night, as we strolled in silence, I smiled at how much of my life I spent trying to “get somewhere.” Trying to “achieve” or “obtain” some imagined thing. Always separate from my moment. It made my constitutional that much sweeter, knowing I had no where else I wanted to be. No imagined place, racing around my mind, pulling me from the lapping water, the cooling evening air, my wife’s hand, the sound of our slow walking.

read Kerri’s blogpost about EVENING

Filed under: Awakening, Body, Gratitude, Love, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Say “Good Morning” [on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 28, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

My dad always kept a garden. He grew up in a farm community. I watched as he attended to his fruits and vegetables and it seemed innate, second nature. Without thought, he knew what to do. His garden knowledge did not find its way to me so I am grateful that Kerri’s thumb is green. Her potting bench is alive with tomatoes and basil.

This is the first summer of my life without my dad and I am finding in the tomatoes a deep sense of reassurance. Connectivity to my dad that transcends time. He loved his garden as Kerri loves hers. In her garden, he stands.

Kerri’s mom and dad watched birds and cardinals were special to them. In the past few years, cardinals have taken up residence in our neighborhood. Brilliant red, salmon, antique pink…Gorgeous. When one stops to visit, I say, “Beaky’s saying ‘hello.'”

I suspect connectivity is what we experience when we slow down. It’s hard not to realize how deeply interconnected we are when stopping all motion to watch the sunset. It’s impossible not to realize how small and passing we are when taking the time to gaze through a telescope at the night sky.

I am taken by surprise by the tomatoes, though I should have seen it coming. I love that each day, I take a break and go to Kerri’s bench. I stop all motion, feel the sun, look for the new growth, and whisper, “Good morning, Columbus.”

read Kerri’s blogpost about NEW GROWTH

Surrender Now, 24x24IN, mixed media

Filed under: DR Thursday, Family, Gratitude, Love | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Overflow With Artistry [On Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 19, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Sitting amidst the boxes that currently fill my studio space, I realized that I’m rolling into the third year since I’ve completed a painting. I’ve been staring at the same canvas set on my easel for a very long time. Broken wrists, the pandemic, another broken wrist, lost jobs and economic free fall initiated an era of blank canvases.

I’ve done this almost every day for two years. I stand at the edge of the boxes. I look at the large canvas layered with undertones of red, covered with layers of tissue, preparing the ground for the image. Charcoal sketch marks barely visible, images I drew and wiped away. I suppose it’s not accurate to say the canvas is blank.

My sketchbook is closed. It sits on the table next to the easel. If I opened it, on the last pages, I would find rough sketches for the painting. Ideas in rude pencil scribbles.

Memory is an organizing principle. A story plot line. We make sense of today based on how we organize our memories into a tellable tale. Looking at the canvas is like looking into a mirror and I ask myself what made me pick up a pencil the very first time. The small-boy-me was seeking. “Running or seeking?” I ask. My studio has always served as a sanctuary. A place where I found quiet, made sense of the chaotic world. “Running or seeking?” I ask again.

Staring at the canvas I should feel loss but I don’t. Each morning, Kerri and I sit next to each other and write. This is the 232nd consecutive week that, five days a week, we’ve written together. She edits what I write, makes suggestions, and I do the same for her. We produce a cartoon every week. For my work I’m also drawing a series of cartoons that, after I script and draw final drafts, I hand them off to Kerri. She digitizes them and, quite literally, adds elements that improves them. I’m not empty of artistry but full to overflowing. I no longer need to retreat to enter my sanctuary.

It’s hard to know where my work ends and hers begins. They are ours. A perfect collaboration. Two as one.

Last week we had a fence installed. Invasive neighbors, throwing rocks at Dogga, lobbing toys into our pond, we’d finally had enough. The fence felt like reclamation of space. The impact was immediate. We hadn’t realized how completely the space invaders – like broken wrists and job losses, had interrupted every rhythm and pattern of our life. Basking in our space – our space – Kerri started to laugh and point. Two birds, lawn art purchased in a small town on our long drive from Seattle, always in our yard but always barely seen, we’d hastily placed them next to the new fence. “Two birds, one shadow,” she said, jumping up to snap a photo.

“Two birds. One shadow,” I repeated her words. I’ll take it as an affirmation. A new fence. A new era. All the world is my studio. My sanctuary. It’s what the small-boy-me was seeking all along.

read Kerri’s blogpost about TWO AS ONE

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Gratitude, Identity, Love, Metaphor, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Live Like. Reach For. [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 18, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

These messages are everywhere! Marketing tags, song and book titles, posters and billboards. memes. A sentiment also found in poetry, plays, and religious texts. Live like…

Live like you were dying (title of a studio album by Tim McGraw)

Live like a monk (title of a book by Daniele Cybulskie)

Live like there’s no tomorrow (A ubiquitous quote and set up for follow-up sentiments like, “Tomorrow may never come!”)

Live like.

Live. No guarantees. Dance like no one is watching. Be here now. If I was the rain.

It’s the message human beings like to deliver to other human beings. Don’t waste your one precious life. Realize it. Consider the lilies.

So the story goes, the Buddha was asked, “What’s the biggest mistake we make in life,” His reply: “The biggest mistake is to think you have time.”

It’s as if we were trying to wake each other up. Or, wake up to each other. It’s as if we need to say, “Don’t miss it!” It’s as if we are asking, “Will you help me see it?”

These days there’s plenty of fear-mongering spinning around the word “woke.” I wonder at this collision of universal message and partisan agenda. After all, what is the opposite of “woke”? Why would anyone want to walk through life dulled or asleep? Why would anyone want to walk through life with their eyes closed, uneducated, filled with answers but empty of questions? Why would anyone want you to close your eyes and mind and heart to the fullness of life?

An amazing thing happens when near death kisses open the eyes: all the perceived divisions drop away. People throw themselves on bombs to save other people, people give up their seat on the life boat and, in those moments, skin color, sexual orientation, or politics matter not at all. In Highland Park, while the bullets were flying, decisions made in helping others to safety and the promise of one-more-day-of-life had nothing to do with division.

In the real moments, the awake moments, people reach for other people.

Perhaps that is why we are appealing to each other in beer commercials and bibles, lyrics and legislation, to wake up.

read Kerri’s blogpost about LIVE LIKE

Filed under: Awakening, Identity, Love, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Seeing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Think About It [on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 14, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Generosity works like blowback: offer support to others and you’ll find yourself supported. Offer kindness to others and you’ll overflow with kindness. Give courtesy, get courtesy. And, it’s not the response or reaction of the recipient that generates the blowback. It’s the act of generosity. The blowback is self-induced.

Of course, meanness works along the same principle. Hate and you fill yourself with hatred.

Often on our trail we find painted rocks. Symbols, messages and whimsy that someone planted for us to find. They make us laugh. They lift our spirits. We generally don’t take them home. We leave them for others to find or, sometimes, we move them to a new location. We re-plant them. Either way, we giggle. It feels like participating in the kindness.

“I want to paint rocks, too!” Kerri’s inner 5-year-old pouted. She went so far as clenching her fist and knitting her brow. Pouty mouth. I fell on the floor in delight after glimpsing the insistent child she was-and-still-is.

We gathered rocks. We bought crappy craft brushes. We brought out the paint. On a gorgeous Saturday evening, sitting outside in the summer breezes, we painted rocks. Compared to the clever rocks we find on trail, our first attempt was crude but inspiring. “We need better tools,” she said, hands-on-hips, admiring our gallery of rocks-ready-to-be-placed-on-trail.

She googled. She asked friends. Armed with information and the desire for better rock art, she’s in hot pursuit of the proper supplies to produce magical rocks that will evoke smiles from people we will never meet.

Someone out there – a person – one day on the trail, giggled and placed a colorful painted stone in the knot of a tree. It set off a ripple of trail giggles in us – and others. How many people, just like Kerri, found their inner 5-year-old, and exclaimed, “I want to do that!”

The, “I want to do that,” isn’t about the rock (though that’s great fun). It’s about the giggle it evokes in strangers. Think about it.

read Kerri’s blogpost about ROCK PAINTING

Chasing Bubbles, 33x48IN, mixed media

chasing bubbles © 2019 david robinson

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Gratitude, Love | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Welcome The Symbol [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 13, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

The daisy plays a central role in our story. And, not surprisingly, daisies represent, among other things, new beginnings and rebirth. When I first met Kerri, a friend, a wise older woman, told me that the universe was offering me a second chance.

At our first meeting, she waited for me in the concourse holding a daisy. Three weeks later I flew back for a second visit. She awaited me in the concourse holding a bushel of daisies. An abundance of renewal. At our wedding, daisies ringed the altar. Daisy cupcakes, instead of a wedding cake, were made special by our miracle-baker Susan.

Daisies are also symbolic of love, cheerfulness, hope, and affection. All are present in our second chance.

Unlike other people, Kerri doesn’t toss the daisies when they wither. She considers them beautiful and carriers of story. One of the daisies from our wedding sat atop the shelf by our bed and only recently passed beyond brittle into daisy dust. The dust made its way into the back yard, sprinkled with appreciation like a magic love potion.

During the pandemic-job-loss-broken-wrist epoch, there was a distinct absence of daisies in our house. Hunkering down and isolating brought a daisy void. A few weeks ago, I came down the stairs from my office to find a row of chipper daisies adorning the dining room table.

“I thought we needed some daisies,” Kerri said and smiled.

Yes. A thousand times, yes.

New beginnings. Rebirth.

If I could, I’d dose this sad discordant world with a hundred million daisies but, for now, it’s a great start welcoming home our special symbol of hope, beauty, cheerfulness, regeneration.

read Kerri’s blogpsot about DAISIES

Filed under: Energy, Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Love | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Arrive At Magic [on saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on June 25, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

It’s true. We read to each other. We read poetry to each other.

Lately, Kerri’s reading to me from Pablo Neruda’s Book of Questions. First, she reads the question in Spanish and makes me guess what Neruda asks. It’s important to note that she doesn’t know Spanish. Her first poetry pass is lyrical Spanish-sounding-gobbledygook-syllables followed by a studied look of expectation (remember, she’s a composer and musician – even her gobbledygook sounds lovely). “Well?” she asks, arching her brow. I make up an answer or stare dumbly. After I fail miserably, she hits me with the English translation. Lovely either way, coherent and incoherent.

Lovely either way. The bluebells and dark hazel can come to us through the yummy words and imagination we share or while slow-walking a trail. We may not have the power to invoke a well-timed Amazon delivery but, truth-be-told, I much prefer the way we arrive at our blue-bell magic. Coherent or incoherent. Either way. Lovely.

read Kerri’s blogpost about POETRY

smack-dab. © 2022 kerrianddavid.com

Filed under: Love, smack-dab | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Look Up. Look Higher. [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 20, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.” ~ Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain

This will read like a blazing generality and I do not intend it to be so. Some of the best people I have known are readers of the book(s). They learned along the line to read their book(s) as metaphor instead of literally, as a history. There are, after all, many paths up the same mountain.

As for me, I was cured of religion when I was a boy but it’s taken a lifetime to understand what and why – and to find language to express what should (to me) be obvious to all.

It only takes a moment to lift your eyes from the book and look up – all the way up to the sky. The book is a human invention, as are the gods and the stories of the gods told in them. The sky, on the other hand, complete with stars and suns and universes beyond imagining, are not human inventions. The book lives in the human mind. That which the book is meant to illuminate is…wholeness…all around us. We are part of, not separate from. That’s it. It’s that simple. The game of separation and unity.

We are part of, not separate from. This word “Love” is unity, the absence of made-up-separations.

The book will have you believing that your body and its myriad of impulses are, like nature, in need of taming. Separation from yourself. The book will promote the notion of a chosen few, the singular path, a destiny that is manifest. Separation from other. Elevation for team-white. Moral authority for team-straight. It’s probably good to feel above others and certainly feels powerful to believe yourself keeper of the book’s rules. Isn’t it blatantly obvious that the rules were/are made by men to justify, as-the-voice-of-god, all manner of privilege and cruelty? Separation, separation, separation.

Here’s what I understood as a boy: any god that promotes separation in any form is very small, indeed, and probably not worth worshipping. At the very least it is a man-made god meant to make folks feel better about their obvious impermanence in an infinite universe.

There’s so much in this life worthy of our worship.

Whether or not we walk as one or decide to beat the hell out of each other for the color of our skin or the natural orientation of our sexuality has nothing to do with the vast universe outside of the book. We create the separations to justify our fear or to protect our property.

We are completely capable of love. We are completely capable of reaching across the unknown and living our short time on this earth in full support of the rich myriad of wonder and diversity expressed through us in this infinite possibility called life.

The book is an abstraction. The person standing before you is not.

Love is love. Love is not separation or division or privilege or a skin color or gender or sexual orientation. Love has nothing to do with how much money you have or do not have. Separations are the province of small people inventing small gods for very small reasons – so they can feel good about being separate and small.

Love is love.

read Kerri’s blogpost about PRIDE

Filed under: Body, Edges, Identity, Love, Metaphor, Perspective, Possibility | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Stroll [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 14, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Yesterday, for some reason, I revisited days of early childhood. I played four-square in the driveway. I threw dirt clods at the site of new home construction. I raced my cars off the side of the abandoned building above Del and Dorothy’s house in the mountains; the cars tumbled and I ran to retrieve them so I might send them flying again and again. I ran home in a panic the day I learned that Nancy’s little sister had drowned in utility hole that was filled with water. It was on the route I walked to school and passing the hole filled me with trepidation, it was a dark portal, my first experience of death. I didn’t really understand it.

Late at night, Kerri and I sometimes talk about everything that has happened in the short time of our relationship. We’ve lost parents and lost careers, spiraled in a free fall of uncertainty, had surgeries and broken bones. We’ve also climbed mountains, watched sunrises and meteor showers, we hold hands when we walk, we write together every day. We dance in the kitchen. I am the sous chef to her cooking artistry.

I’m not sure if we practice paying attention to our moments or it’s something that has come naturally to us. She is rarely without her camera, noticing the smallest flower, capturing the angry sky. I hold the space and hope someday she stops apologizing for stopping again to take a photo; I love watching her discover the shapes and colors of this world. Besides, I get to see what she captures in her lens with an excited, ‘Lookit!”

Today the plumber comes. Yesterday we appealed to the company that destroyed our yard replacing the waterline to come back and strip off the top layer of soil, now filled with hardware and concrete and asphalt. Slowly, we are digging out, repairing and replacing all that was destroyed or delayed in our free fall. Our lessons seem to be about stress – or, rather – not stressing. We are having experiences, rich and varied. Some things we can control. Most, we cannot. The best we can do is hold hands and stand together in each experience. Appreciate them no matter whether they look like tragedy or comedy. We’ll make meaning of them later down the road.

The artist dances with death. The appreciation of the fragility of life. Each day I walk by that metaphoric utility hole, only now it does not fill me with trepidation. It makes me squeeze her hand and fills me with gratitude for this life, this moment, this shadow we cast together as we take our time strolling through the garden.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SHADOW

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Gratitude, Identity, Love, Metaphor, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Experience It [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 13, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Dogga was fast asleep just outside the back door. The early morning air was cool and the sun was shining on the deck. He found the perfect spot for a re-pouch.

I was concerned because his usual morning habit is to raise a ruckus and run in circles. His silence brought me to the back door. I was so surprised to find him sleeping that I was at first concerned but the morning was so still, so unusually quiet, that I, too, felt overcome by the peace of it all. I watched him sleep. I wanted to lay down in the sun and cool air and enjoy the rare moment.

Kirsten was here for the weekend. She and Dogga have a special bond. He was laying at her feet; sleepy eyes bobbing. I told her that Dogga was just beginning to have some old-dog behaviors. More naps. Sometimes he allows the squirrels to run across the yard without a chase. He’ll be nine years old soon.

There’s a phrase that’s recently popped up several times in my reading. The purpose of life is to experience life. I thought about that on Saturday night. Kerri was inside prepping for dinner and Kirsten was upstairs. I sat on the back deck to watch the waning light. Dogga came and rested his head on my shoulder.

There are moments that you want the world to stop, moments that you want to rest in, drink deeply and savor, yet you know they are special because they are passing. That particular combination of loves will never again coalesce in just this way. A snowflake .

The purpose of life is to experience life. In all of its snowflake forms. Fully. Deeply.

[Jim Seals passed this week. His passing has Kerri singing We May Never Pass This Way Again]

read Kerri’s blog post about WE MAY NEVER…

Filed under: Family, Gratitude, Love, Merely A Thought Monday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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