Merely A Thought Monday | The Direction of Intention

Feed The Fable [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 29, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

i didn't even notice copy

DogDog is a furry beast. He sheds like a champion. I vacuum every other day to stay ahead of the fur onslaught. In my defense I can only say that it is not my vacuum. We are guests in our little house. I realized too late that the vacuum cleaner bag was full. I realized too late that the replacement bag in the cupboard was the wrong size. I learned too late that, here on island, the mercantile doesn’t carry vacuum bags. I now know that Amazon will have new vacuum bags delivered to us by Tuesday, a full five days after my first vacuum revelation.

While we await the arrival of the bags, Kerri has placed a strict moratorium on visitors entering our little house. No one is permitted to see the mess. When someone walks up our driveway, we meet them in the yard. We steer them around the little house to the lake side chairs. We chirp with anxiety if they make a step toward the house.

I suspect we are not the only people who chirp, who sweep things under the rug, turn the lights low when guests are on the way, clean the house before the cleaners come. Once, on my honey-do list, was this: clean house before the electrician arrives. I did. The electrician, a nice young man, worked in a spotless environment. He inhabited and fully participated in our illusion of clean.

You know who your friends are when you allow them beyond the curtain of clean, when you permit them to see what’s behind THAT door in the basement. You really know who your friends are when they return from the clutter zone and say things like, “It wasn’t that bad,” or “I didn’t even see any piles of stuff.” Your real friends, the people that really love you, support you in your illusions. Or, is that delusions? Either way, thanks Dan. We’re glad you returned from the basement to tell the fable.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE BASEMENT

Filed under: Gratitude, Merely A Thought Monday, Random, Uncategorized | Tagged: basement, clean house, cleaning, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, delusions, dog fur, friendship, Gratitude, illusions, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, messes, studio melange, sweep it under the rug | Leave a comment »

Turn It Around [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 22, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

narcissistic world copy

There are moments in your life when you suddenly realize that the world has changed. One of those moments for me happened many years ago in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. My introduction to selfies. I watched with confusion as people waited in line to take a selfie with Van Gogh’s painting, Starry Night. Most of the selfie-takers didn’t actually look at the painting. The painting was secondary to the desire to be photographed with a famous thing. At first – this is a true story that seems ridiculous from a 2019 vantage point – I thought I was watching a piece of performance art, a brilliant statement of personal inflation and value reduction. Instead, my head spun as I realized I was, in fact, witnessing a museum full of people fundamentally missing the art in pursuit of a look-at-me-moment. It was my very own personal harbinger of the coming narcissistic tsunami.

Kerri showed me an article in the news. People wading into the waters of a toxic lake to take selfies. The water is aqua blue, made so by the industrial chemicals poured into the lake. Even though the lake water can burn skin, getting the selfie is more important. What impressed me most about the article was how dulled I was to it, how completely ordinary it seemed.

Culture is blind to itself. We live in the age of the Tide pod challenge, Facebook and Instagram streams, media echo chambers. Narcissism normalized and celebrated. Consumed by self. Image.

‘It is a strangely narcissistic world,” Kerri said, closing her news app. Yes. It is. Strange. And, it turns out that I was right all those years ago. It is a performance art piece with everyone producing and broadcasting their own image. Image inflation. Value(s) reduction. Made up importance. And the art? Andy Warhol had it almost right. Everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes, one post at a time, but the world in which they celebrate their fame will be of their own creation.

read Kerri’s blog post about A NARCISSISTIC WORLD

guilty as charged! we, too, are expressions of our culture.

Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: culture, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, narcissism, selfie, starry night, van gogh | 1 Comment »

Hold It Lightly [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 15, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

humorous thing called life copy

Roll this description around in your thought-bowl:

“The Spoon River Anthology, a sequence of free verse epitaphs spoken from [the occupants of] the cemetery of the town of Spoon River. When the collection first saw publication in 1915, it caused a great sensation because of its forthrightness about sex, moral decay, and hypocrisy…”

We saw a snippet of Spoon River performed last week at our new artistic home, TPAC. It’s almost impossible to see even a bit of Spoon River and not realize how fragile and temporary is life. It’s a not-so-subtle poetry-reminder that most of what we think is sooooooo important is, in fact, a tilt at windmills. In its forthrightness, its perspective on hypocrisy and moral decay, we found Spoon River to be remarkably contemporary.

Tom told me that he always used Spoon River to teach his beginning actors. “It’s all there,” he said, “All of it!”

He read a piece from the anthology at his great aunt Bunty’s funeral. It takes life to love life. After Tom’s death, Kerri and I performed the same piece in my play THE LOST BOY, a script derived from interviews with Tom. Words that end the first act. Words that described Bunty. Words that Tom adored:

Untitled-3

It’s the best of paradoxes. Kerri and I remind each other everyday that our work, our artistry is not nearly as important as we think it is. We remind each other to hold it all lightly. And in holding it lightly, we open the door to experience it richly. To laugh rather than resist. To know, that we will, one day, populate a plot on the hill, and the only thing that will have mattered is that we paid attention and participated in our moment, that we loved the little bit of life that we had.

read Kerri’s blog post about DUST

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Merely A Thought Monday, Uncategorized | Tagged: appreciation, attention, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Edgar Lee Masters, epitaph, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, moments, poetry, presence, spoon river anthology, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Use Both Ears [On Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 8, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

god gave you copy

When I was young and upset about an issue I can no longer remember, Tom tempered me with this question: “Is this the hill you want to die on?”

Another time, still young, I was very angry, and on a warm spring day in the central valley, Arnie sat with me on the grass and listened to my tale of woe. I wanted to write a letter expressing my discontent. He nodded and, in his gentle way, taught me that sometimes it is sometimes necessary to express yourself because you need to express yourself and for no other reason: “Write it because you need to say it, not because they need to hear it,” he said. This morning, as I write this, I can’t for the life of me remember what made me so angry.

Quinn taught me that there are seven billion people with me on this earth and not a single one cares about what I look like or what I think. Like me, they are invested in what they look like, what they think.

They do care, however, that I listen. Isn’t it the case so often in this life that the opposite of what we believe is actually where the power lives? Aren’t we under siege in a raging war of opinions, a constant bombardment of competing points-of-view? So many mouths and not a single ear in the mix.

For the life of me, I can’t remember what made me so angry on those days so long ago. I can’t remember the hill I chose not to die on. What seemed so important was, in truth, not even worth remembering. I do, thankfully, remember the sage advice of so many mentors, teachers and friends. I’m so grateful that in the midst of my red hot self-righteousness, I was capable of listening.

read Kerri’s blog post about EARS AND MOUTHS

Filed under: Education, Gratitude, Merely A Thought Monday, Uncategorized | Tagged: advice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, listening, mentors, opinion, point of view | Leave a comment »

Begin [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 1, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

let the adventure begin copy

Let the adventure begin – if we were all illuminated, this would be the mantra beginning each day. Every day a new beginning. Everyday an unknown. Stepping boldly into each day as a discovery rather than a known, a dry list of tasks to complete.

However, we are – I am – not illuminated, so this declaration of adventure is saved for the days when the ships course is set to find the earth’s edges, when there are obvious impossible mountains to climb.

Today, Kerri and I begin a new adventure. We’ve moved for the season to Washington Island, Wisconsin. We are, as of midnight, the co-managing directors of The Trueblood Performing Arts Center. We have no idea what that means – the word “manage” implies that the systems are in place, the root is established, and that is certainly not the case. The challenges are truly unique. They are island challenges. Dials need spinning. Perspectives need flipping. New paths need exploring.

The community is special. Welcoming. And, although art on this island is valued and appreciated, the community sits atop the hierarchy. People help people. People celebrate people. The island turns out when there is a triumph to cheer or a loss to mourn. That is what makes this place, this island, special. The fabric of the community is intact.

A new beginning. We have many, many lists but hold no illusions that what lies ahead is known, containable. It is lively. It is, in every way, an adventure.

read Kerri’s blog post about The Adventure

Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Uncategorized | Tagged: adventure, challenges, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discovery, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, new beginning, studio melange, trueblood performing arts center, unknown | 1 Comment »

Carry The Message [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 24, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

*everyone is a messenger copy

Rick Stone, founder of the StoryWork Institute, began his workshops with this fill-in-the-blank prompt: I come from a people who___________, and from them I learned____________. Try it. You will be surprised by the characteristics that jump up, the things you don’t really think about that you hold dear or that you resist. The connectivity that, for better or worse, defines you. The seedling of the answer to “Who am I?”

Jean Houston Jean Houston called it the burning point: you are the living flame, the burning point, of an ancestral line. You carry those who came before you. You will live through those in your line who come after you. It is the greater story, “Where do I come from?” It is the greater story, “Where am I going?”

One day, I caught myself standing with my elbow bent, just as my father stands when he is thinking. It is the posture his mother took when she was deep in thought. I imagine it was how her father or grandmother stood. An entire line of elbow tension reaching back into dark history. My elbows connect me. Kerri said, “This DNA thing is real!”

With all the time, money, ego, and energy we spend in life trying to distinguish ourselves as individuals, as distinct, as separate, it is actually the opposite, it is our connective tissue that gives us definition. It is in and through our relationships – our stories – that we generate meaning. It is through our roots – our stories – that we understand who we are.

I come from a people who___________, and from them I learned_________. We are messengers, all.

read Kerri’s blog post about MESSENGERS

Filed under: Family, Merely A Thought Monday, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: ancestry, connctivity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dna, Jean Houston, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, messenger, relationship, Rick Stone, roots, story, storying, StoryWork Institute, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Live So Much [On Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 17, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

so much life lived box copy

“So much life lived this week,” Heidi said to Kerri. Yes. So much.

It is, of course, true every week. Some weeks it is simply more apparent. The happenings seem bigger. A wedding. A graduation. A passing. A new job. A birth. A week of life.

Last week? A walk on the beach. Both children under the same roof; something that has not happened in years. Travel to another state. Staying present with my dad for those moments when he’d forgotten who I was. Staying present with my mom as a wave of fear washed over her. A job lost. Taking his keys and truck away. The deep gratitude of sleeping in my own bed, even for a night. So much life lived.

I have taught myself, in my waking moments, to think, “Make this day a discovery.” I have given too many weeks of my life away, too many days, too many hours, too many minutes, believing that I knew what was going to happen. Dulling myself. Blinding myself to so much life happening. ‘Discover the day’ is a much better approach than ‘Get through the day.’ The truth: none of us really know what is going to happen.

And this week?

read Kerri’s blog post about SO MUCH LIFE LIVED.

Filed under: Gratitude, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: changes, Colorado, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discovery, hilton head, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, learning, life, moments, presence, society6.com/davidrobinson, story, storying, truth | Leave a comment »

Empty The Dishwasher Slowly [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 10, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

empty the dishwasher slowly box copy

In the dark ages, when I did my driver’s ed course, I remember reading an experiment in which two cars drove the same long distance route; the first car followed all of the speed limits. The second car drove as fast as possible. The second car, the speeder, arrived only a few minutes, 120 seconds, ahead of the rule follower. The illusion of speed is, well, an illusion.

We just drove a few thousand miles and along the way were passed by more than a few hurry-up-cowboys. In each case, their gain would be minimal. Often we’d catch them (and pass them) within a few minutes. It’s a game I can’t help playing: does the addiction to speed, the anxiety of I’m-late-I’m-late-I’m-late, or the anger of I-have-to-get-there-first actually produce significant gains?

An angel gave us a beach house to use for a week. My normal morning routine is predicated on the fantasy of efficiency. I can cook breakfast, clean and put away dishes while also sorting out and making lists of all the things I think I need to accomplish each day. At the beach I was always the first one awake. I’d start the coffee, wander around and open the blinds, and, after staring at the surf, I’d begin to empty the dishwasher. The waves lulled me into sanity. There was not an ounce of rush-and-get-it-done in my body. Efficiency was nothing more than a distant memory. I enjoyed my morning. Fully. I began wondering if I was just like those speedy drivers? Deluding myself with an idea that, in reality, gained nothing but a wee bit more stress.

What if the idea was more than to get the job done fast? What if the idea was to do the job well and well included the absence of manufactured, self-imposed stress? These are things I already know but have to remind myself to live. And, since all of life appears to me as an analogy, my latest reminder to live what I already know is now a simple dishwasher. Empty it slowly. It need not be at a beach house because, in fact, the beach house has very little to do with dropping delusions/illusions of achievement.

Will it matter if I empty the dishwasher 16 seconds sooner? So I can get through it to the next task that I will rush through so I can get to my next task? Is my efficiency real or in service to anything useful? Probably not. Actually, certainly, not.

Will it matter that I am present in my actions and mindful in my day? Will it matter that, instead of pushing myself to concocted efficiencies, that I arrive at an empty dishwasher 16 seconds later? Will it matter if I carry that way of being throughout my day? So, that, instead of pressing myself to get it done faster, I allow myself to live my life well (and, yes, I use that word intentionally with a double meaning). To be in it rather than get through it.

Imagine what I might gain.

read kerri’s blog post about EMPTY THE DISHWASHER SLOWLY

Filed under: Awakening, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Uncategorized | Tagged: david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dishwasher, efficiency, gain, hurry, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, loss, mattering, mindful, mindfulness, presence, slow, speed, studio melange | Leave a comment »

See Two [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 3, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

nature of life box copy

“Birth is painful and delightful. Death is painful and delightful. Everything that ends is also the beginning of something else. Pain is not a punishment; pleasure is not a reward.”
― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

I am fond of symbols. A horizontal line bisecting a vertical line. Two triangles interlocked to create a star. A black and a white swirl, coupled to form a circle and each containing a dot of the other. All symbols of opposing forces interconnected and counterbalancing.

It is a story of two. Spirit and body. Male and female. Inhale and exhale. The pull of the moon rolling the tide in and out. Birth and death.

Most of us live our lives in abstraction, that is, generally removed from the push-pull of nature. Electric light. Hot and cold running water. Food picked from a grocery store shelf. Our trash easily goes to the curb and disappears.

We do not see that life eats life. We rise with the alarm rather than the sun. Perhaps that is why we engage in the ridiculous debate over whether or not we the have impact on the environment. We somehow have deluded ourselves into thinking we are not part of nature or worse, that we are above it. Our actions do not matter. Isolated, we somehow have come to live in a disembodied story of one.

Kerri and I walk almost every day. We often walk the same trails through Bristol woods or the Des Plaines river trail. We walk them through every season. The barren snowy winter, the budding spring, the full leaf of summer, the color and fall of autumn. As we cycled through the seasons on our trails, I am reminded that these symbols were always meant to help us live and understand life here and now, to engage fully in the dance between the natural forces, the story of the two. Interconnected. Counterbalanced. A part of. The middle way.

It is only when these symbols are mis-taken within the story of one that they become warring emblems. Self-righteous. Inert and other-wordly. Out of balance. Domineering.

Tornadoes are impersonal. Forest fires are not discerning. The tsunami does not pick its direction. The sun melts the snow without ire. Judgment has not place in a story of two. Building up. Tearing down. Sunrise. Sunset.

read Kerri’s blog post about BUILDING UP & TEARING DOWN

Filed under: Energy, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: balance, cycles, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, energy, force, interconnected, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life cycle, pema chodron, spirit, story, storying, studio melange, sue aikens, symbols, yin and yang | Leave a comment »

Appreciate The Garbage [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 27, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

your past copy We saw this phrase on a Baptist church signboard en route to the Des Plaines river trail: your past should not dictate your future.

I read somewhere that we spend the first half of our life stuffing a bag full of garbage and the second half of our life unpacking and sorting through it. If it is true that we must make mistakes in order to learn, then much of what we judge as garbage must also be the necessary ingredient for growth. Context is everything.

When we first met, Kerri introduced me to a song by Rascal Flatts called Bless The Broken Road. Our conversation was a shared soul searching about all things we’d done in the past and labeled as ‘mistakes’. These ‘mistakes’ set off chains of events that led to the really good things in our lives. One of them led to our meeting. “You have to listen to this song,” she said. God bless the broken road.

Forgiveness seems hard to extend to others but almost impossible to extend to ourselves. Mistakes. Garbage. Broken roads. Who really knows where a path leads? Who really knows the impact of any decision or choice? It is easy to look back on a choice and criticize it because it is also easy to forget the pressures-of-the-moment and future-blindness that factor into our choices. Hindsight is not as clear as advertised.

When we were young Roger told me that he didn’t want to have any regrets when he looked back on his life. At the time I agreed. Now, I know that a life void of regret is a life lived on a too narrow spectrum, a protected life. A life free of risk. And, that life, inevitably comes with one single but whopping regret: it wasn’t really lived.

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

read Kerri’s blog post about PAST DICTATES