Celebrate The Pivot [on saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on December 24, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Rob and his family celebrate the solstice. Arnie and his family celebrate Hanukkah. My sister and her clan observe Christmas. The earth travels. There is a moment when the tide of retreating light tips and returns. A touch more light than dark. Minimum declination pivots and slow walks, minute by precious minute, toward maximum. For eons, humans have celebrated, personified, and symbolized the moment of light’s return.

The best story. The fewest words.

[in preparing for a cantata, she wrinkled her brow and said, ‘I need another piece!” She noodled for a few minutes on the out-of-tune church piano, pulled a few phrases from the imagination-sphere, and then sang this song. It sprang into earth fully formed. Thank goodness I had my old iPhone at the ready to capture it. We didn’t record the performance. I tell her, again and again, that she needs a proper recording of this beautiful song. She says, “Someday. And maybe with a cello line…” In our own way, we await the return of the light]

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

smack-dab. © 2022 kerrianddavid.com

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Weave Her In [on KS Friday]

Posted on December 16, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

These story moments happen spontaneously. We wanted to sit in the dark living room and appreciate the warm light of our branches and holiday trees. We’d spent the evening wrapping “happy lights” around e.e., this year’s christmas tree, adorning her with silver balls of all sizes.

Our trees are rarely traditional. In fact, we almost never choose them; they usually find us. The story of the tree – and I use the term “tree” loosely – is more important than the shape of the tree. We’re not invested in the traditional aesthetic. For us, it’s not a show piece. Our tradition is firmly rooted in the story of how the “tree” finds us. Orphans come in from the cold.

We sat in e.e.’s light and combed through Kerri’s phone looking for the images-of-christmas-trees-past. We laughed when we found photos of them. We recounted the story of each, placing them in time, comparing notes of how they found us. There was “christmas tree on a stick.” There was the year of the stick wrapped in lights, a star suspended above it. There was Satan, the evil tree that Craig wrought. This year is our tenth christmas and our stroll through the trees became a stroll through our time together. “We look like babies,” Kerri said of the younger versions of us, the two people, arms intertwined, standing by a tree almost a decade ago.

When e.e. came to us, she was anemic. Scraggly. We loved on her. Opened her branches and fluffed her. Last night, after our walk through time, Kerri looked at e.e. and said, “She looks so happy.” Yes. She does. Beaming.

And isn’t that the point of the whole season? A little fluffing. Taking some time to pay attention. To love on each other. To infuse new life into depleted spirits? As we weave e.e. into our story, her happiness injects warm happiness back into us. And will for years to come. Our spontaneous story moments always remind me of the essential things sometimes lost in the season of commodity and cacophony called christmas. It’s really not so complicated.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about e.e

the lights/the lights © 1996 kerri sherwood

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Grow The Grove [on DR Thursday]

Posted on December 23, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

To most people, this silver ornament nestled in branches of green needles, signals the holiday season. For us, not so much. We have silver ornaments suspended in all kinds of branches 365 days a year. They are generally – though not always – accompanied by white twinkly lights. Kerri calls them “happy lights.”

It’s true that most of the branches and most of the silver ornaments originated as our version of a christmas tree. A few years ago, we sprayed white paint on interesting branches found on a walk, stood them in cool pots, wrapped them in happy lights and, yes, placed silver bulbs throughout. We liked them so much that, to this day, they glimmer in our living room. Several years ago we found a sturdy, very straight stick for our holiday tree, adorned it with lights and silver balls, and suspended a star over it. The stick, sans star, now lives in the corner of our bedroom. It is versatile and moves through the house according to our fancy. Our current tree, the single star, will probably be with us for some time.

I know it sounds as if our house is slowly becoming a forest of branches, bulbs and happy lights. We are certainly eccentric enough to make that vision come true but, for now, the grove is (mostly) confined to the living room. We are given to ending the day, sitting in the dark, illuminated by happy lights and silver ornament reflections.

I cherish ending our day in quiet appreciation and also our dedication to spilling holiday goodness throughout the other eleven months of the year. The forest makes us feel good. It keeps us grounded. It reminds us – no kidding – that human kindness and generosity need not be confined to a season. It reinforces that how we treat other people matters – in all situations, at all times of the year. And, it helps us remember that happy lights are everywhere – and they have names- and lives – and move through our story as friends and family and neighbors and strangers we meet along the way. Our living room forest, you see, is a metaphor. Perhaps I lied: I think we do intend for the forest grove to fill all of our spaces.

read Kerri’s blog post about SILVER ORNAMENTS

www.davidrobinsoncreative.com

angels at the well © god-knows-when-but-certainly-another-century david robinson

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See The Life [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on December 21, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

There was a transformation the moment we raised the branch and secured it in the pot. “It looks happy,” Kerri said. I was thinking the exact same thing. This broken branch, muddy and discarded and sad, we brought into the house, trimmed it, lifted it, and positioned it, was instantly revivified. The moment was palpable.

“Are we just making it up” she asked.

“No,” I responded, not certain what, exactly, I was seeing, but this branch was suddenly full of life. It was warm and energetic where, only a few moments before, it was downcast. “I think it likes being here.”

We stood and stared and tried to make sense of what we were seeing. “This would make a good children’s book,” we said at the same moment. Happy, happy, happy.

We added a few simple lights, a single ornament, but mostly we let it be. Its happiness is decoration enough.

We visit our tree during the day. Its exuberance is infectious. Before retiring each night, we turn off all the lights in the house except for the tree. We sit with it and drink in the warm feeling it radiates.

“That tree is like good sculpture,” 20 said, admiring it. “It reaches,” he added. Good energy.

We remain amazed. We’ve not yet grown used to the sudden metamorphosis. I hope we never do. It’s become more than a symbol for the season. It’s a possibility. A promise. A reminder.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE TREE

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Catch The Glimmer [on KS Friday]

Posted on December 17, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Barney, the piano that lives in our backyard, nearly had a chandelier suspended above his lid. We thought it would be funny to look out back at night and see Barney all-gussied-up.

We’re not really chandelier people but you’d be amazed at how many pieces of chandelier, separate crystal ornaments, live around our house. It’s as if a chandelier came to visit, had an unfortunate explosion, and the falling pieces conveniently landed near windows or light sources so they might catch and reflect the light. We like the glimmer yet are more subtle than a chandelier.

We finally decided on this year’s christmas tree. In our time together we’ve only had one traditional-looking-tree. Craig forced it on us. He was driving the day we went to the farm to cut a tree and threatened to leave us in the snow if we brought home our first choice. It was…unique. He had his heart set on a scotch pine so we brought it home and named it Satan. That tree had seriously sharp needles and a very bad attitude. On the 26th of December we lassoed Satan, drug him out of the house and down the street, through the snow, to the tree drop-off spot. For months afterward, his needles would jump out of hiding and stick our toes.

This year, our tree is large branch whacked from the aging maple tree by the heavy machinery that dug the moat in our front yard. Kerri saved it from the mulcher. I’m not sure how we got it in the house but we did. DogDog hid in the bedroom during the transition. His courage failed him, as it does when we vacuum or drop a cooking pot, when he saw the monster-branch entering through the front door.

We love our tree. It is, like us, simple and proud in its history. It carries stories. Long ago our children sat on this branch. It shaded Kerri and me the weekend we met and laughed tossing a frisbee in the street. It waved the evening we danced in the front yard. Now, it stands in the house, near the window, wearing a strand of white lights and holding a single ornament. A tin star.

We think it looks happy to be here. We’re certainly happy that it’s here. A different kind of tree. A glimmer, reflecting the many, many years of memories, the symbol of our year of water, and destruction transformed into beauty. What, for us, in this year and this season, could be more appropriate?

read Kerri’s blog post about GLIMMER

kerri’s albums are available on iTunes or streaming on Pandora

the lights/the lights: a christmas album © 1996 kerri sherwood

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What’s The Story? [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on December 25, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

o christmas tree story post copy

 

oversizedjoy copley place website box copy

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Think “Isn’t It Weird…?”

Posted on December 21, 2017 by davidrobinsoncreative

my new tree;-)

Wide awake in the middle of the night, we snacked on handfuls of Chex cereal and indulged in my favorite kind of conversation: “Isn’t it weird that…?” Little did we understand that our late-night conversation would set the theme for the week.

The next night high winds toppled our neighbor’s ENORMOUS aging maple tree into our backyard. The insurance company called it “an act of God.” It is a phrase implying no fault, no responsibility. It just happened. I laughed aloud when, immediately following the “act of God” designation, the insurance adjuster heaped on us a load of legal cautions, new responsibilities (the tree now ‘belonged’ to us), property line designations, and small print reminders meant to minimize financial risk and responsibility to the insurance company. The layers of irony are too many to count though I suppose if wacky preachers can assign responsibility for hurricanes and other natural disasters to the wrath of God, then it is no less ridiculous for insurance companies to invoke the fickleness of God to absolve themselves of liability.

Isn’t it weird that…?

P-Tom reminded us that the “act of God” was that no one was hurt in the tree fall. For P-Tom the act of God was a kind of intervention. A few degrees to the right, a slightly different wind direction, and the tree would have landed on our bedroom. Life does seem fragile by the slightest of degrees. We told people that we were lucky. Intervention? Fortunate? Fate? Design?

Isn’t it weird that…?

We cut a branch from the fallen tree and brought it in the house. It is now our Christmas tree.

Had you asked that branch a week ago if it would ever become a Christmas tree it might have laughed at you.

As a maple branch it had no aspirations or intentions of being wrapped in lights or decorated with silver baubles. In truth, it probably cares little if it makes us laugh or invokes a smile each time we enter the room. But it does. Or, better, we make sense of it that way. Sense making? Story telling? Either way.

Isn’t life weird?

Our work-in-progress

 

 

 

 

 

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