Merely A Thought Monday | The Direction of Intention

Teach The Full Story [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 15, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Viewed from space, the earth is round.

That simple fact has led some truly dedicated reality-deniers to the startling conclusion that the earth is flat. They argue that it’s absurd to think that half the population of the earth lives upside-down. Of course, no one has yet been able to prove that there is a top or bottom to the universe so it’s anyone’s guess which hemisphere of the earth is right-side-up and which is up-side-down. Be careful on those vacation cruises not to sail too close to the edge.

The Republican party in these un-united-united-states have become the political equivalent of flat-earthers. Cherry-picked half-data spun by a dedicated-nonsense-media into a Flat Stanley reality. Two-dimensional thinking in a three-dimensional world. It’s a problem. It’s a scary problem. The good ship USA is on course to meet the edge while the captains on the bridge wrestle for control of the steering wheel.

What is the steering wheel? The story we tell ourselves about ourselves. Our history. The Manifest Destiny story is meeting the realities of demographics. The party of white-dominance is in a panic to maintain its story of supremacy. They’d rather run us over the edge than let this richly diverse nation fulfill its promise. Fulling the promise begins with telling the full story. In Florida, the governor has literally banned the schools from telling the full history of this nation.

In other times, more clear-headed times, these laws would be acknowledged as authoritarianism. In our times, it’s marketed as the Republican response to “woke-ness.” In other words, education is the enemy. Stick your head in the sand. Hear-no-evil-see-no-evil. Proclaim the earth is flat or be prosecuted.

It was inevitable. The rhetoric of “All men are created equal” would someday need to reconcile the reality of a system built on the institution of slavery. Our forefathers wrote about it as the single greatest threat to the survival of our nation, this vast difference between our rhetoric and actions. In a school – capable of teaching our history – that would seem to be a very important and timely history to explore.

Systems do what they are designed to do and ours has performed as intended, elevating one group while suppressing others. It’s in our legislative record. It’s in the writing of our founders. It’s history.

For the second time this week I’m using this phrase: As I learned in school, systems are living things and will fight to the death to maintain themselves. We are watching a system – our system – fight to the death to maintain itself. In this fight, it will lie, cheat, scratch, steal, bite and squeal. It will incite fear. It will turn citizens against other citizens. It will whip up division and demonize those it brands as “other.” It will toss away all ethic and morality to maintain itself. It will make laws to protect itself. We are witness to it. We are participants in it.

The national story will maintain itself as flat, or, at long last, take a hard look at itself and change.

I was truly alarmed when I read that teachers in Florida are afraid to teach the history of the United States.

Our nation is round. Plump and full of rich diversity with a rich complex history. It is, after all, the reality of our nation, the story we are living. It is the reason for our successes – cultural crossroads have always been places of innovation. Perhaps it should be the story we at long last embrace. Perhaps, rather than muzzling our story, legislating for white-fragility, we will someday – as a nation – be proud of our iridescence and work to tell our full story rather than the flat-lie the reality-deniers are asking us to swallow.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BE

Filed under: Edges, Education, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, culture, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Diversity, education, flat earthers, Florida, forefathers, history, inclusion, innovation, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, slavery, story, studio melange, teaching, teaching history, the melange, USA, white fragility | 1 Comment »

Melt And Hammer [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 8, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

We are easily entertained. Once, we nearly crashed the car laughing-so-hard at the names we gave to our alter-egos. Who drives around naming their alternative selves? We do. Sit us in a corner and we’re pretty good at finding something to do.

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” ~ Thomas Merton

Igneous is volcanic. Fiery. A few weeks ago we painted rocks to put on the trail. Since we’re both cycling through an artistic-growth-crisis, we painted and fantasized about our new career intentions. When Kerri suggested we call ourselves “igneous artists” I howled. The layers of meaning are too vast to count. Plus, I thought it sounded suspiciously close to “ignorant artists” and I liked that, too. “We should hang out a shingle,” she said, “For Hire!”

Igneous artists.

“Art is standing with one hand extended into the universe and one hand extended into the world, and letting ourselves be a conduit for passing energy.” ~ Albert Einstein

Because we tend to riff on everything, while painting rocks, we rolled around our new art-moniker until we had an appropriate clever (to us) sub-phrase. “It sounds like a lyric,” I announced, mostly as enticement for my lyricist wife to spin out a theme song. She did not take the bait.

Igneous artists with sedimentary souls.

‘Layers of soul’ is a yummy image. Especially if the layers are born of elements like fire. Like all artists, we’ve been forged, melted in a hot furnace and hammered into shape. The smith hammers out the impurities. “People don’t change,” Kerri often quips, “They become more of who they already are.”

I could stand to lose a few impurities. I look forward to becoming what I am already.

“To draw you must close your eyes and sing.” ~ Pablo Picasso

read Kerri’s blogpost about IGNEOUS ARTISTS

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: albert einstein, alter ego, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fiery, fire, foreged, forge, furnace, igneous, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, layers, musician, painter, Picasso, rock painting, soul, story, studio melange, the melange, Thomas Merton, two artists, writer, writers | 1 Comment »

Go Roman [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 1, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Today we begin the Whole 30. The first time, we did it because Kerri’s system had run amok. The only way to find the culprit of her system’s craziness was to eliminate all the suspects, rebalance her system, and then slowly reintroduce foods. That’s the idea behind the Whole 30. It worked like magic.

This time, Kerri and her nieces are doing it together. They’ve made a pact. I am going along for the ride.

There’s a distinct difference between the days before our first experience and our run up to beginning today. Last time we were desperate. We needed to find something that would help her system. This time, we went full-Roman. We ate everything, even things we normally would not have thought to eat. We’ve made a full-on-food-assault on both our systems. “Since we can’t have wine for a month, I think we should have another glass,” I said…every day last week.

It’s human, isn’t it? To pretend that what you are about to do is nigh-on-impossible, so, the strategy to make it possible is to front-load the rewards. It’s the thought behind Lent. It’s the reason diets fail. It’s the story of “We deserve this…”

We created our own personal Mardi Gras.

I knew we’d given up all pretense the night Kerri looked at me and said, “When was the last time we had a Hostess cupcake?”

“We’ve never had a Hostess cupcake,” I said. “I used to eat them when I was a kid but you and I have never had one.”

“What!” I saw the wild cupcake intention in her eyes. It was late in the evening. “We have to have one!” she exclaimed jumping up. “Hurry! Ann’s is about to close!” Ann owns the local corner market. She carries cupcakes. And wine. And ice. And has a terrific deli. Kerri grabbed my arm. We ran-walked to Ann’s. Roman, Roman, Roman.

None of this would have happened without the looming Whole 30.

It’s not yet 8:00 in the morning, day one, and Kerri’s already asked me, “Do you remember the cupcake?”

Truth: I do. And my second thought? Cupcakes are better with red wine.

Human, human, human.

read Kerri’s blogpost about CUPCAKES

Filed under: Body, Merely A Thought Monday, Random | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, decadence, diets, food, health, healthy eating, Hostess Cupcakes, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Lent, Mardi Gra, red wine, splurge, story, storytelling, studio melange, the melange, Whole 30, wine | 1 Comment »

Live Inside The Altar [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 25, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Dear reader, you have done me a great service. You’ve connected my past to my present.

I’m not sure why but, initially, I numbered rather than named my blogposts. My 623rd blog post was about a practice I’d all but forgotten. Building an altar of gratitude.

Someone out there read #623 so it popped up in my analytic. “This is old!” I thought, staring at the screen. A numbered post! Another era. “I wonder what I was writing about?”

2012. Thanksgiving. Among the darkest days of my life and yet, on that day, I was deeply, profoundly grateful. Life had chased me to a cliff. There was nothing to do but leap. I remember like it was yesterday wandering the streets of Seattle placing notes of gratitude in the cracks of walls, at bus stops, at coffee shops. I felt as if I was invoking. I wanted a better world. If I wanted it, I needed to offer betterment to the world. It was a prayer. A weaving. It was the last time I built my “altar of gratitude.”

A year later I lived in an entirely different world. Everything went to ashes.

2022. Kerri and I are walking our trail. We’re giggling because we just planted a painted rock in the elbow of a tree. “Do you think someone will find it?” her inner 5 year old asks, too wiggly with excitement to stand still. I expect her to skip in circles of enthusiasm.

“Yes,” I laugh. “Someone, someday, will find it.”

As I reread #623 I realized that, in rising from the ashes, I was no longer building my altar on a single day in a single season. I was no longer invoking gratitude. I was no longer hoping for a world that might someday come into being.

I am creating it. Not on a single day or special occasion. I’m practicing gratitude every day. I’m living gratitude every day. Painting rocks, making dinner, watching sunsets, buying groceries, writing blogposts.

Because you sent #623 back to me, a marker in time, I’ve realized I’m living inside my altar. All the world….

read Kerri’s blogpost about EXPLORE

Filed under: Awakening, Edges, Emergence, Gratitude, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Uncategorized | Tagged: altar, artistry, ashes phoenix, dark days, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, explore, Gratitude, intention, invocation, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meditation, painted rocks, practices, prayer, presence, Sacred, spiritual practice, story, studio melange, thanks giving, Thanksgiving, the melange | 1 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: artistry, awake, Buddha, Daniele Cybulskie, David Phelps, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, division, education, helping, Highland Park, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Mary Oliver, Matisyahu, mistakes, presence, Ram Dass, reach, sleep walking, story, studio melange, the melange, Tim McGraw, Tom Petty, wake up, woke | Leave a comment »

Be Different [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 11, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Inadvertently, 20 did me a great favor. On the day Kerri and I married, he carried a concealed camera and captured conversations and special moments of our ceremony. In his footage is a short exchange he had with my dad. My dad said of me, “He’s his own man.”

To that point in my life I’d wondered what he thought of me, my winding career path, my free-form seeming-feral existence. “He’s his own man,” brought me peace.

Once, during a conference that we led, Alan told me I should dress differently. “People would have more respect for you,” he said. Once, trying to fit in, I wore a suit to a facilitation and Rich told me I should dump the suit and dress as myself. I’ve awarded him the blue ribbon for best advice.

In my consulting life I wore clogs. I hated shoes with strings. The first thing I did at every job was kick off my clogs. You’d be surprised how invested people in power suits are in their footwear. You’d be heartened how human they become when they unlace and kick off their shoes. It’s like removing a mask.

People hire me because I am different. Because I see differently. My difference is my gift, the epicenter of what I bring to the world – and that is true of all people.

In a culture that prides itself on its individualism, it’s always been amusing to me how invested we are to “fit in.” Shopping at the right store, wearing the right clothes, we gush about our wild nature while synching tight the corporate tie. To “dress for success” means to fit a prescription, to NOT stand out. Business casual. The real real. All houses must look the same. Revealing behavior betrays the swaggering rhetoric.

Our individualism is at best a thin veneer. In truth, we fear difference. I dare the court of Supremes to uphold a coach’s right to pray before the big game on the 50 yard line if he’s Sikh. Or Muslim. Or Hindu. Or Buddhist. My son is gay. He lives a constant, never-ending battle to defend his difference. Why?

“But the truth is, I am different,” I said to Kerri who was red-faced with anger at the email from the concrete sub-contractor. He turned down the job to replace our bit of sidewalk, broken out during the waterline repair. Among his reasons, “…and he seems a little different.” He was referring to me.

“I’ve dealt with that my whole life,” I said as she furiously typed a reply. “It’s not a big deal. I’m an artist.”

“It is a big deal,” she snarled, typing harder, faster.

Listening to her ferocious key-pounding, I had a sweet wave of appreciation for her. In a lifetime of “different”, it is a rare and precious moment that someone vigorously defends your difference. Rather than hammer you into creased dockers, lace-up shoes or the right haircut, a furious defender was unfamiliar. She, too, is different and knows the bruise of the shame-hammer. I suspect we’ve all experienced its sting.

In my head, I heard my dad say, “He’s his own man.” Peace. I am what I am and the people who love me wouldn’t have me any other way. That makes a difference. All the difference.

This I know: it’s nice – so nice – not to be alone in my difference.

read Kerri’s blogpost about DIFFERENCE

Filed under: Gratitude, Merely A Thought Monday, Pattern, Perspective, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: artist, artistic, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, difference, Diversity, fear, gay, hypocracy, inclusion, individualism, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, story, studio melange, the melange, truth | Leave a comment »

Live The Words [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 4, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

We awake each morning to birdsong. I imagine the birds’ song raises the spirit of the sun. Or, the birds sing because the sun raises their spirits. Both are good stories.

When I was in college I had a professor who seemed a bit radical. Now I recognize that he was not radical. He was a scientist and his data was prophetic. He was sounding an alarm for his students, knowing that his students could not yet hear him. He was the first person to introduce me to the notion of climate change. At the time, the world was still smarting from the oil crisis of the 1970’s. One day in class he said, ‘If you think the oil wars are bad, just wait until the water wars.” I heard his voice this morning while looking at photographs of Lake Mead and the river Po. Dwindling water meets rising population. Panic is in the air. In the meantime, Australia is drowning. Desperation is on the rise.

I like to imagine the birds raising the sun while the sun raises the song in the birds. It’s a story of interconnectivity. It’s to understand the question, ‘what causes what?’ – as a two way street. You impact your environment and your environment impacts you. Or, better stated, you and your environment are not separate events. (“The love you take is equal to the love you make.” ~ The Beatles)

Though he never used the word, “interconnectivity” was the construct my seeming-radical professor was asking us to consider. He understood that his students were products of a long tradition of disconnection. A dedicated delusion of dominance over nature ruled our construct and he was attempting to puncture that absurdity bubble. Pour toxins into your river and your water will poison you. Pour carbon into your air and your air will eventually pour carbon into you.

The same applies to governance and society in general. What we pour into it is what we will experience as it. H wrote that, “Politics is simply the exercise of being a good neighbor for the sake of the neighborhood.” Interconnectivity. For the sake of the neighborhood. Demonize your neighbor and they will, in turn, demonize you. Refuse to listen to your neighbors and they will refuse to listen to you. Pour guns into your community and your community will inevitably aim its guns at you. Lie to gain power and the lie will gain power over you.

Pour support, service, acceptance, consideration…into your community and it will respond in kind. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is not so complicated a concept when seen through the lens of interconnectivity. Kindness begets kindness. Acceptance begets acceptance. Honesty begets honesty. Intend it. Practice it.

These are easy words to say. Living the words is quite another story. Unless you happen to be a bird, singing the sun awake as the sun pours its rejuvenating warmth over your song.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THIS DAY AND AGE

Filed under: Energy, Identity, Language, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: acceptance, artistry, bird song, climate change, community, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, good neighbor, interconnectivity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, Lake Mead, nature, Po river, pollution, reciprocity, relationship, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

Blink Open Your Eyes [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 27, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

In an interview, Thomas Friedman called what we now face in this nation a “slow erosion.” Societies do not collapse all at once. They slow boil, frog in a pot.

Timothy Snyder said, ‘Ideas matter.” After all, ideas become action. Ideals matter, too. Democracy is an idea. It is not a given. Those who erode its foundation must believe it is inevitable, otherwise they would think twice before perpetuating The Big Lie, brazenly participating in sedition. Make no mistake, justifying an assault on the succession principle is to turn against the fundamental idea. Democracy is nothing more or less than a succession principle. Ideas matter.

Slow erosion. Slow boil.

Watching the news, reading the streams, there’s not much more that can be said after the court’s assault on a woman’s right to choose what happens with her body. Equality is an ideal. It is not a given. We not only have to choose it, we have to choose it again and again and again. Equality is a kind of power structure. It is the rhetorical central idea of our society.

And, so, we work on and on to make our central ideal more than rhetoric. We fought a war over inequality. We actively chose our central ideal with equal rights amendments. Early in our history, we chose it when we extended the vote beyond white male land owners. We chose it again when we prevented government from dictating what a woman could and could not do with her body. Equal rights.

Equality scares those who stand atop the hierarchy, who believe their privilege is their power. Ask Ginni Thomas what drives her sedition? Ask her husband Clarence why, now that the nation has rendered women second-class citizens, we now must revisit the rules of contraception and same-sex marriage? Ask Mitch McConnell about his life-long mission to pack the courts. What, exactly, might they be afraid of? Why are they working so hard to undermine rather than further democratic ideals? Why are they choosing to restrict equal rights while pushing forward autocratic candidates with authoritarian ideals?

My grandfather told me it was wiser to listen to a person’s actions and not their words.

Ideas, ideals – like equality – are powerful and made visible in chosen actions. Tom used to say that you can see the power of an idea by “the size of the tide that rises against it.” Right now there is a mighty tide rising against the democratic ideal of equality and the core principle of succession. It’s not a given. We are seeing what happens when the guardians of the principle turn against it. Slow erosion. Robbed nest.

The good news is that Tom’s phrase works both ways: you know the power of an idea by the size of the tide that rises to defend the idea.

Timothy Snyder also said that we have recently been a nation of sleepwalkers. Democracy is not inevitable. It is a choice made again and again and again. We create it on a daily basis through our choices and actions – or we lose it. Perhaps this latest assault on the ideal will wake us up? Perhaps we might blink open our eyes and realize that, as the stewards of the democratic ideal, we’d best start choosing to walk toward it rather than allow this minority, that so fears the power of equality, to continue their assault on the right to choose.

read Kerri’s blog post about ROBBING ROBIN’S EGGS

Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: #Timothy Snyder, artistry, authoritarian, autocratic, choice, Clarence Thomas, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, equal rights, equality, Ginny Thomas, ideals, ideas, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mitch mcconnell, pack the courts, Roe vs Wade, story, studio melange, supreme court, the melange, the right to Choose, The Road to Unfreedom, Thomas Friedman | 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: artistry, change, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dogga, family, Jim Seals, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life changes, love, moments, passing moments, presence, Seals & Crofts, story, studio melange, the melange, We may never pass this way again | Leave a comment »

Unearth Your Modtro [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 6, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Our latest late-night binge is Bad Hikers. An adorable young couple hiking the John Muir Trail. Never have two people hiked the JMT in such modtro style. Goth meets urban chic. They are at home in their style, comfortable in their bodies, so they are both unaffected and affected at the same time. Glimmers of Mad Max on the JMT. I love it. Their spirit inspires us.

William Blake is another in the canon of artists unrecognized during his lifetime but now considered a creative titan, one of the great artists of the Romantic era. His contemporaries thought he was crazy because he was not like them. He stood out and no amount of hammering would make him fit the mold.

In the dance between the conservative and the creative impulses, the conservative will always claim the safe ground, plant their flag in “normal.” Tradition. “We’ve always done it this way.” The creative will swim to the margins, climb to the tops of the mountains where they can see more clearly. “What’s over the next horizon?” All people are a mix of both impulses, conservative and creative. We dance between the poles.

One of the first lessons I learned in art school is that, in the western tradition, every era reacts against the previous standard (I laughed when it occurred to me that our tradition is to react against our tradition – no wonder we are always at war with ourselves!) Realists rise in response to the Romantics. Impressionism reacts to Realism. And on and on. The other side of that equation is that the artists are generally tuned into societal and technological advances. Picasso’s cubism and Einstein’s theory of relativity hit the world within a few months of each other. Reactivity holds hands with innovation.

And so it goes with clothes, too. To dress as is expected. To dress as a statement. To dress as is comfortable. To find your style. To define yourself within your era. Clothes are how we publicly locate ourselves relative to the two poles. “This is me!” We shop at the same stores, we buy the same brands, all to express our individuality relative to the expectation-of-the-day. Sometimes you find your style and sometimes it finds you. And, mostly, your style changes as you do. Tie-dye puts on a suit and tie.

And so, this long and winding road brings me to a caution: do not, when you unearth the box of sponge curlers in your basement, exclaim as I did, “Oh my god! Who on earth ever used these things! Why do we have these in our house?” My laughter fizzled the moment I realized that the obvious answer was standing right next to me.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SPONGE CURLERS