Love | The Direction of Intention

Say Uff Da [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 20, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

I never met Kerri’s dad. He passed before I came into the picture. I feel as though I know him. When a nasty bit of home repair is staring me down, I often ask his advice. “What should I do with this one, Pa?” I ask. Generally, he crosses his arms in quiet consideration and mutters, “Uff da.” And soon a solution comes to mind.

Hanging beside our back door is a bamboo wind chime. It was Pa’s. Sometimes when we open the back door it voices and I respond with a hearty, “Good morning, Pa.”

His nickname for Kerri was “brat.” I know exactly why Pa gave her that nickname. Let’s just say she earned it and, to be clear, has never outgrown it. 20 often looks at me in desperation and says, “She’s torturing me!” He wants me to intervene, to come to his rescue. I know better. Kerri laughs. So does Pa. We love the brat even if we are the recipients of her mischief.

Earlier this year I lost my dad. Yesterday while on the trail, I confessed that I was overwhelmed with a wave of missing him. “Cycles of grief,” as the Wander Women say. Growing older is filled with cycles of grief and I had cycled in. I sighed. Kerri squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“This sucks,” I thought.

“Uff da,” Pa said.

read Kerri’s blogpost about UFF DA

Filed under: Family, Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Language, Love | Tagged: artistry, brat, cycles of grief, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, family, grief, growing older, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, loss, mischief, story, studio melange, the melange, The Wander Women, Uff Da | Leave a comment »

Imagine The Possibilities! [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on April 19, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.” ~ Lao Tzu

I’ve had this quote sitting on my desktop for months. I’ve been on a Lao Tzu kick, a Kurt Vonnegut kick, a Rainier Maria Rilke kick…all at the same time. They are, not surprisingly, in alignment on many topics, among them self-mastery. “The secret?” they whisper. “Stop trying to control what other people think or see or feel and, instead, take care of what you think and see and feel.” Their metaphoric trains may approach the self-mastery station from different directions but the arrival platform is the same.

It’s a universal recognition: take the log out of your own eye.

Sometimes a penny drops more than once and so it is with Saul’s advice to me. “Look beyond the opponent to the field of possibilities.” “And, just what does that mean?” you may shout at your screen. It sounds like new-age hoo-haw.

Ghandi said, “Nonviolence is the weapon of the strong.” It is the height of self-mastery to bring ideas to the table rather than a gun. It is the height of self-mastery to bring to the commons good intention and an honest desire to work with others to make life better for all. Power is never self-generated but is something created between people. Power is distinctly different than control. Power endures since it does not reside within a single individual. Power lives, as Saul reminded me again and again, not in throwing an opponent but in helping the opponent throw themself. “Focus on the possibilities,” he said again and again. Throw yourself to the ground often enough and, one day, it occurs that there may be another way.

Work with and not against. It seems so simple. The bulb hovering over my cartoon head lights-up. Work with yourself, too, and not against. Place your eyes in the field of all possibilities. Obstacles are great makers of resistance, energy eddies and division. Possibilities are expansive, dissolvers of divisiveness.

I am writing this on the Sunday that Christians celebrate their resurrection. The day that “every man/woman for him/herself” might possibly and-at-last-transform into “I am my brothers/sisters keeper.” All that is required for this rebirth is a simple change of focus; a decision to master one’s self instead of the never ending violent attempt to exercise control over others.

It’s the single message, the popcorn trail left for us by all the great teachers. Instead of fighting with others, master yourself. Imagine the possibilities!

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE CEILING LIGHT

Filed under: Awakening, Creativity, Education, Energy, Identity, Intuition, Love, Metaphor, Navel Gazing, Pattern, Perspective, Possibility, Seeing, Story, Surprises, The Direction of Intention, Transcendence, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, commons, community, control, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, easter, focus, ghandi, imagination, imagine, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Kurt Vonnegut, Lao-tzu, mastery, meaning making, non resistance, non-violence, obstacle, possibilities, power, Rainier Maria Rilke, rebirth, resurrection, story, studio melange, the melange, the possible, transform, violence | Leave a comment »

Collapse And Decide [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 18, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Brad calls it “paralysis by analysis”. Over thinking. Over researching. Reading every label. Considering every color combination relative to every other possible color combination. If you do some quick math, you’ll note that there are an infinite number of color combinations so arrival at a choice is a process of exhaustion. Waving the white flag. Conclusion via collapse. Decision by despair.

Neither Brad nor I suffer from this debilitating condition but both of our partners in life do.

It’s hard to watch. I learned at the very beginning to detach from the process. If I wait for the research and comparison phase to pass, if I say nothing until the desperation arrives, then I can tip the turmoil into a choice. And then I return to detachment because the paralysis has only reached its midpoint..

They say that summiting a high peak is not the dangerous part. Most climbers die on the return trip, the descent from the mountain. The same is true for analysis-paralysis-style-decision-makers. Once the decision is made, a river of decision-doubt and choice-remorse rushes in. The real paralysis happens after the decision is finally made. And revoked. And made again. And revoked. More spouses have collapsed on the way down from Mount Decision than on the initial ascent.

There’s a terrific scene in the movie About Time. The wife wants help from her husband in deciding which dress to wear to an important dinner meeting. She models dozens of dresses. He finds goodness in every option. She finds flaws in every dress. He becomes increasingly desperate, no matter what he says or enthusiastic support he offers, he finds himself swirling into the quagmire of no-good-answer.

I love that movie. Every time I watch that scene, I both howl with laughter and close my eyes. I know his desperation. I feel his fatigue. The minute she circles back and decides on the very first dress she modeled, with his wave of relief I whisper to the screen, “Now you’re really in trouble.”

read Kerri’s blogpost about DECISION FATIGUE

Filed under: Love, Merely A Thought Monday, Pattern, Uncategorized | Tagged: about time, artistry, choice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, decision fatigue, decision making, decisions, detachment, doubt, give up, indecision, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, obstacle, paralysis, paralysis by analysis, process, story, studio melange, the melange, too many choices | Leave a comment »

Say It Again [on saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on April 16, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

First, I’ve never heard Kerri use the words “gollygee” or “schnuckums” though, I am wildly impressed that in a single thought-bubble she managed to include both. Now, as all challenges go, I am dedicated to using them three times a day over the next week so I can incorporate them into my vocabulary. “Gollygee, schnuckums, I think I’ll take out the trash.”

I am guilty of applying the word “antiques” to us and much of our day-to-day surroundings. Kerri gives me “that” look every time I suggest that we are chickens-not-of-the-spring. I never suspected that, behind “that” look, was such a benign phrase. Gollygee, schnuckums. I imagined the phrase running through her mind was something more sailor-ish. Salty. Not recommended for public hearing.

Gollygee, schnuckums. An antique phrase. Benign, with hints of tired pleasantry. Love with overtones of irony. Proof positive that our corningware and mixing bowls are properly matched with the era of their users.

And, aren’t you impressed? I used Gollygee, schnuckums three times in a single post. This challenge is going to be a snap!

(*If I go silent, if I suddenly disappear from earth, you’ll know that I used my new phrase one too many times. Don’t blame her. As usual, I will have done it to myself)

read Kerri’s thoughts on this saturday morning smack-dab.

Filed under: Love, smack-dab | Tagged: aarp, antiques, artistry, challenges, composer, corningware, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, growing old, irony, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, language, love, musician, painter, passing time, relationship, second chances, story, studio melange, the melange, two artists, vintage, vocabulary | Leave a comment »

Wag-A-Wag [on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 24, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

We call it his wag-a-wag. Dogga came to us with his tail docked, and as an exceptionally happy pooch, his stumpy little tail is often in full expression. He leaves no doubt about his anticipation and enthusiasm. Walk into a room and the wag-a-wag of the supposedly sleeping Dogga will start to flutter. “It would be so good for you to love on me!” And, the wag-a-wag is always right.

Sometimes it seems so simple, this art of living. If I had ten Academy Awards and a Pulitzer Prize or two that would be great, but I wouldn’t trade a single sweet moment with the wag-a-wag for a plaque to hang on my wall or a statue to put on my shelf. Don’t get me wrong, I’d delight in a degree of success, but I know at the end of the day, in my last few moments, I will treasure my life with the wag-a-wag, the mornings on the raft with the sun streaming in the window, drinking coffee, talking about the day, and Dogga rolling over just-within-reach (he’s an Aussie and has a spatial quirk) for his morning belly-belly.

It’s the rule of the wag-a-wag. Walk into the room and signal simple enthusiasm, an expectation of mutual generosity. Not only is it so good for me to love on you but it is so good for you to love on me. One-and-the-same-action.

read Kerri’s blog post about COZY

Filed under: DR Thursday, Family, Love, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dog, enthusiasm, expectation, generosity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, love, moments, mutual generosity, pets, presence, simple, simple moments, simplicity, story, studio melange, the melange, treasure | Leave a comment »

Ready The Wings [on KS Friday]

Posted on March 11, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Yes, I’m being followed by a moonshadow/Moonshadow, moonshadow/Leaping and hopping on a moonshadow/Moonshadow, moonshadow” ~ Cat Stevens, Moonshadow

An appreciation of life, no matter what comes. It is the meaning of this lyric, this song – or so I’ve read. It seems obvious. I’m having many, many conversations about loss these days. This has been an era of loss and, so the cliche’ goes, with loss new opportunity arrives. It’s true though one must move through the loss in order to arrive at the new. On the way, there is weeping and fear and anger and disorientation. Chrysalis. The trick, we are told, is about focus placement. One day we shift our eyes and see what we have instead of what we no longer possess. We move toward rather than look back.

Kerri has, for years, surrounded herself with symbols of peace. They are on our walls, on rings that she wears, on chains draped on the corner of our bathroom mirror. She draws them in the sand on the trail. A prayer for the world she desires to create. Inside and out. Since she fell, my solo-piano-playing wife has lost more than mobility in her wrists. Strange stuff is happening. Fingers that sometimes refuse to respond. Pain that shoots, seemingly from nowhere. After a photograph – a wish for the world, a peace sign in shadow – she said, “Come look at this. Look how much my finger is bending!” Strange stuff.

What is most remarkable about this shadow is, a year ago, it would have been cause for frustration. A reminder of loss. Full of fear. Today, it was a curiosity. She looks back, she looks forward. Each day she writes lyrics and poetry and wisdoms. She hums the music running through her mind and heart and, sometimes, she dances. Standing at the crossroads of what was and what is to become. Peace replaces pain. All in good time. Good time. Wings readying to unfurl.

[peace. this is one of my favorite pieces of Kerri’s]

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about PEACE

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Body, Creativity, Gratitude, KS Friday, Love, Perspective | Tagged: adaptation, anger, artist, artistry, AS IT IS, CAt Stevens, chrysalis, composer, crossroads, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fear, focus, focus placement, frustration, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, loss, lyric, moonshadow, pain, peace, poetry, prayer, seeing, solo piano, story, studio melange, the melange, wisdom | Leave a comment »

Hold The Space [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on February 28, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

When I met Kerri, the bar of acceptance I had to clear was not with her children, it was the enormous cat with the name of a rapper: BabyCat. If the sumo-sized cat had rejected me, I’d have been shown the door. Thankfully, BabyCat was merely indifferent to my presence so I got to stay. And, after a few years of kitty-aloofness, one night BabyCat crawled into my lap and I knew I was in for good.

Today, BabyCat would have been 13 years old. He left us in a flash almost a year ago though, to this day, I think I hear him upstairs. I’m not the only one: after breakfast every morning, a year later, Dogga returns to his B-Cat meet-up spot in the kitchen and waits for his pal to join him. With full bellies, they would meet, hang out in the kitchen, and sleep the morning away. Now, after a few minutes, Dogga retreats to the back door and pines.

Though Dogga and I miss our BabyCat, Kerri suffers most from his absence. Sometimes I find her standing still in a room, as if she is listening. I wait, holding the space. “I can’t believe he’s gone,” she says. He came into her life in a period of great upheaval and was her constant companion. Through the years that she lived in this big old house all by herself, she was never all by herself. She had her BabyCat. He had her. They were – they are – bonded.

It is the empty space, the surprising change of pattern, the absence of a normal daily sound: the heavy footed cat coming down the stairs to beg a treat, that makes us stop and listen, move to the back door and pine, or tell BCat stories. Today we light a candle and celebrate BabyCat. We pause to fill the empty space with memories and laughter of all we loved about our enormous tuxedo cat with the name of a rapper.

read Kerri’s blog post about BABYCAT

Filed under: Gratitude, Love, Merely A Thought Monday | Tagged: artistry, BabyCat, birthday, cat, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Gratitude, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, loss, pet love, pets, story, studio melange, the melange, tuxedo cat | Leave a comment »

Constellate [on KS Friday]

Posted on February 25, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Our 3am banana conversation was about cleaning out. The past few years have, as Skip is fond of saying, tipped the apple cart. Our life-apples are akimbo. So, as we pick them up, we are also sorting. It’s not just the stuff in our closets or the post-water-line-mess-explosion in the basement, it’s also the psychological/mental/spiritual/emotional debris. What bag of trash can we finally toss in the bin? What small treasure was unearthed that surprised us? What will we carry forward into the next chapter that informs who we’re now becoming?

I sat in the basement for a few minutes yesterday, staring at the canvas on my easel. Each day I see a little more of the painting that I will someday paint. I do not now have the time or energy to make it visible. This canvas is becoming a marker in time. It calls. My creative energy is dedicated to other projects and I am careful not to over-tap it. That is new. Knowing my limits. Honoring the creative well is part of who I am becoming. I am in no rush. That’s new, too.

“I’m certain these were my momma’s,” Kerri said, showing me the tic-tacs. She was cleaning out the pantry and found them in the way-back. Beaky was a fan of tic-tacs. Treasure. And, how did they get lost in the recesses of our pantry? No matter, they inspired some good stories, reminiscing. “It makes no sense, but I’m keeping these,” she said. Treasures do not need to make sense.

I learned a big lesson during the decade that it took me to complete and produce The Lost Boy: I started it as a project for Tom to perform and it became a project I had to perform for Tom. His passing was the final piece necessary to complete the story he wanted to tell. His passing made the play possible to perform. The lesson: we cannot see it all. We think we understand “why” but mostly our reasoning is constellation. Dots connected in the vast open sky.

The tipping of the apple cart. 3am bananas. Next chapter imagined and arriving. A tic-tac kiss from the past. Making space for constellation. We are in awe and not in a hurry.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about TIC –TACS

Filed under: Gratitude, KS Friday, Love, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, Beaky, becoming, cleaning out, composer, constellation, creative well, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, house cleanig, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, making sense, making space, meaning, meaning making, musician, new life, next chapter, painter, painting, sifting, sorting, story, studio melange, the melange, tic tac, tic tacs, treasure | Leave a comment »

Arrive At The Essence [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on February 15, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

This past Saturday we passed a milestone. We began writing our Melange on February 12, 2018, four years ago. We’ve published 5 days a week, every week, no matter what chaos or crazy storm blew through our lives.

Our Melange has moved through many phases. Originally, we wanted to regain some control over the publication of our music, paintings, plays, children’s books and cartoons. In our first post I called it our “pile of creative perseverance.” Also, we wanted to make a living from our mountain of work so we set up Society6 storefronts and spent hours each day developing products based on what we published. It was a blast and a total bust.

Eventually, the stores fell off, the daily themes changed, and we arrived at a pure essence: we love to sit together and write. Each day. There’s always a visual prompt, mostly from photos Kerri’s taken during the week. There’s only one rule: we can’t read or know what the other is writing about until we’ve completed our drafts. And then we read to each other, talk about our posts and clean them up. It’s my favorite thing to do. It feeds our hearts, energizes our artistic souls and that is more than enough.

Somedays I feel as if we are writing ourselves into existence. Our Melange is the story we tell each other – and you – of our life together. It’s a continuation of the Roadtrip, the daily emails we wrote to each other before we met. And, if the Roadtrip was a narrative offering of “this is me,” the Melange is a narrative offering of, “this is us.”

We launched the Melange with this Chicken Nugget (below). I wrote, as an introduction in the inaugural post, that this Nugget – and the Melange – was “a quiet reminder that the universe of feelings was – and is – so much bigger than words can possibly contain.” Ironic, yes? Coming from two people who, each and every day, write words as their way of reaching into this vast universe of feelings.

Thank you for reading what we write. We appreciate every step you take with us on our journey.

read Kerri’s blog post about 4 YEARS

Filed under: Art, Chicken Marsala Monday, Creativity, Gratitude, Love, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: appreciation, artistry, artists, blog, blog posts, cartoons, Chicken Marsala Monday, Chicken nugget, co-creation, collaborator, composer, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, feelings, flawed cartoon, Flawed Cartoon Wednesday, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, narrate, narrative, painter, perseverance, story, studio melange, the melange, The Roadtrip, together, writers | Leave a comment »

Live A Great Story [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on February 14, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

I suppose I must not have seen the small print requiring an extra fee for the petals to actually be attached to the stems. Silly me. I’m not a detail guy so it never occurred to me that ordering flowers was like flying on Frontier Airlines: if you want a seat you need to pay extra. If you want wings on the plane there’s an up-charge. If you want the roses fastened to the stem, it’ll-cost-ya.

Every story has a context. Without the context a story cannot be fully understood. Here’s the context for our sad-rose-tale. Kerri and I have out of necessity lived lean. Very lean. This is the first year since we met that I had the capacity to send my wife roses on Valentine’s Day. Context number two: since we spend 24/7 together and she monitors our expenses like a hawk (a necessary practice that comes from living lean) , it’s nigh-on-impossible to surprise her. Fromyouflowers.com seemed to be a solution for a long overdue surprise. “How bad could it be?” I asked myself. Woof.

Never ask yourself a question when you can ask other trusted people. I could have asked Jen or Gay or Jay. They would have warned me off. I could have asked them to arrange roses from a local florist and I would have secretly paid them after the fact. I did none of the above. I was having a nice conversation with myself and, left to my own devices, I’m perfectly capable of making a dumb idea sound titanically smart.

The roses (I use the term loosely) came, not on Valentine’s Day (today), but on Friday. Surprise! Gay’s response after seeing the picture truly captured their state: “Too bad they picked them in August,” she wrote. Even the leaves had abandoned the stems. Brad’s comment was my personal favorite: “How efficient,” he wrote, “you received roses and potpourri in the same order.” Efficiency was, after all, my aim.

Kerri, a gifted transformer of lemons-into-lemonade, separated the dead petals from those few still living and put them in a crystal bowl. And then, she offered me this consolation: “Think of it this way,” she said, “if they’d arrived intact, we’d never remember them. Now we have a great story to tell.”

First roses. A Valentine’s tale. We’ve laughed all weekend [I confess, the humor in the story took me a moment or two to see]. With or without roses, on this day of celebrating true love, this is what I know for certain: we live a great story so we have a great story to tell.

read Kerri’s blogpost about NOT-ROSES