Ask The Bird [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on March 13, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.” FDR

I laughed aloud when I read this quote. Luck certainly comes from a point of view. The good luck of the early bird is not great for the worm. I’ll add that tasty tidbit to my book of low-bar-wisdom: It’s never good news when you are on the breakfast menu.

Luck, good or bad, is never an incident isolated in time. That’s the point of the famous Chinese fable. Is it good luck or bad? Who knows. It’s all dominoes. I met Kerri because my career (and life) was collapsing. Was my career collapse good luck or bad? Ask Kerri if meeting me was good luck or bad and her answer will probably waver given the events of the day.

These past few months, after the software start-up went away and we tumbled into our latest reinvention, I’ve been pondering the Chinese fable more than usual. It felt like great luck when the opportunity appeared. If feels like bad luck in its disappearance. Both/And. I was certainly prepared when the opportunity came along. No amount of preparation-meeting-opportunity kept the company from vanishing. Bird or worm? We’ll see.

I love the notion that luck, the good side, is out there, looking for us. I imagine Luck standing on the horizon each day, shielding her eyes and whispering, “Where are they?” With us standing on our horizon looking for Luck and Luck standing on her horizon looking for us, it’s only a matter of time before we spot each other.

And, maybe we already have. That’s the tricky thing I’ve learned about Luck. She sometimes comes in disguises. That wily Luck is a trickster and has a wicked sense of humor.

This is all I know: if I was writing the children’s-book-for-adults-about-luck, the worm would have just crawled out of a tequila bottle and the newly intoxicated early bird would be left with an important question: was that worm good luck or bad?

read Kerri’s blogpost about LUCK

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Celebrate Renewal [on KS Friday]

Posted on December 23, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss Art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss money.” ~ Oscar Wilde

Rebecca reminded me of David Bayles and Ted Orland’s remarkable book, Art & Fear. I flipped it open to this quote and laughed heartily. We discuss what we desire but do not yet possess.

On the opposite page I read this tasty bit: “Once you have found the work that you are meant to do, the particulars of any single piece don’t matter all that much.”

Years ago, watching me draw in an Italian Street Painting festival in San Luis Obispo, Roger commented that making art was what I was meant to do.

The other day, Kerri asked me if I wanted to hear a carol. She stood at her piano and played. There was no doubt – it was visible and electric – the carol she played was one of her compositions. I watched a brilliant artist do what she is meant to do.

Art is born of a service motive. Banking is born of a profit motive. It’s hard to explain a life of artistry in a world that exclusively values the profit motive. It seems foolish until you consider this: bankers, in retirement, play golf. Artists, in retirement, make art. There is no greater gift in this very short life than having an inner imperative. It tips contemporary valuation on its head.

Rebecca sent this quote from Art & Fear. She’d just asked me if I was still painting and I stuttered. “What separates artists from ex-artists is that those who challenge their fears, continue; those who don’t, quit. Each step in the art-making process puts that issue to the test.” I am currently challenging my fear.

Last night the Up-North Gang gathered for dinner at Jay and Charlie’s house. Jay is a remarkable artist. Everywhere I looked in their house I saw her artistry. The meal she made was a bold step into the unknown and it was delicious. She is doing what she is meant to do and it spills out in every room.

At dinner, we talked about our children coming home for the holiday. I was the only person at the table who will never know the full depth of the desire of parenthood. I am a step, not a birth father. The joy of their children glowed in the faces seated at the table. All else seemed irrelevant.

There is a place beyond service and profit motives, a lovely dinner conversation where artists and bankers come together at one table. Family. And isn’t that – in the end – what we are all meant to do. To sit side-by-side and celebrate our renewal?

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE HOLIDAY

i wonder as i wander/the lights © 1996 kerri sherwood

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Savor The Impossible [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on October 10, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Kerri and I have an ongoing conversation about design. Not graphic design or interior design. Life design. Is there a design, a predetermined path? A destiny? Our verdict lives on a pendulum. Sometimes it seems apparent: there is. Somedays it seems obvious: there isn’t. Both/And.

When we look back at our lives it seems impossible that we met. So many factors – millions, in fact – had to align at just the right moment for the arc of our paths to cross. Change a single aspect, one decision, just one, and our trajectory through space and time would have been wildly different. We would have tumbled through life never having known each other.

It’s hard to recognize in our most ordinary days that the same principle applies. Always. Each moment of every day we are making choices, tiny micro-choices, that bend the course of our lives. I once looked at the “publish” button and thought, “What’s the point?” I almost deleted the newsletter but, in a move that felt utterly impulsive and completely ridiculous, I clicked the publish-button. My life had exploded. Pieces rained down from the sky. I had nothing to lose. Why not. Publish.

Stories are told after the fact. “How” always comes second.

I clicked a button. A woman named Kerri responded. A conversation started.

Our coming together was nothing shy of mystic. Heaven and earth had to move for this possibility to become a reality – and it did. It moved. It felt as if unseen hands gave us a push. What are the odds? Astronomical. What about those hands?

Heaven and earth move everyday. Astronomical odds. Micro-choices. Ordinary life. Miraculous. Looking backward it seems destined. Looking forward it seems random. Design? Arbitrary? Yes. I suppose, either way, the real question is, “Do you appreciate it?” Do you know how impossible this moment is? Where else would you be?

Today is our seventh anniversary. Today, I savor the impossible and appreciate the design. Both/And.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SUPPOSED TO BE

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Try To Disappear [on saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on April 30, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“There will be days that you know you simply cannot win. The best thing to do when you find that you are standing in a no-win situation, is to vigorously wave your white flag and surrender to your fate as gracefully as possible.” ~ Quinn (not an exact quote)

“To keep your mouth closed and say nothing is trouble for sure. To say anything in this moment – anything at all – is the road to tribulation. There is only one thing to do. Feign a slipped disk. Crumple to the ground in desperate pain. Seek theatrical escape!” ~ the only advice my inner Confucius offered in my moment of need.

“This world is crazy. It makes no sense.” ~ Sterling Brown, This Is Us.

read Kerri’s blogpost on this Saturday Morning Smack-Dab.

smack-dab. © 2021-2 kerrianddavid.com

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Defy Augury [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on February 9, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

It lifted my spirits. David sent a short video, a snippet of a play. He called it “Sofa Shakespeare.” Using small toys from his son’s collection, he performed – and filmed – a puppet version – of Act 5, Scene 2 of Hamlet. “…we defy augury. There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow….” He’s a professor of theatre, a director and playwright, a major member of my inspiration-tribe. He is a bubbling wellspring of the creative.

We have a periodic-ongoing-for-years-conversation about Hamlet. The play is special to both of us. I’ve had two runs at Hamlet. Both were significant. Both productions popped open new doors of understanding for me. Both productions also came to me just before the floor-of-my-life collapsed. I’ve come to think of Hamlet as an omen. If today I was approached to direct it, I’d say “Yes,” but, inwardly, I’d think, “Uh-oh.” I would defy augury. Like Hamlet, I’ve come to realize that I have little or no control over my fate.

Later in the day, after Sofa Shakespeare, Kerri and I hit the trail. The sky stopped me in my tracks. It was winter-radiant. I felt as if I was standing between heaven and earth. Staring at this magical sky, Kerri asked, “What do you think is going to happen?” Our lives, like so many others during this pandemic, have been blasted into utter uncertainty. We ask this question daily, “What do you think will happen?”

“I don’t know. Something will happen. That’s for certain,” I respond. She punches my arm.

“Not helpful!” she grimaces.

Making choices. Making peace with your choices and your fate. Chasing ghosts. Asking the ethers for more information. “What does it mean?” Trying to decipher whether the ghost you chase is “a spirit of health or goblin damned.” Whether your ghost brings “airs from Heaven or blasts from hell…” What will happen?

Continuing down our snowy trail, more words from Hamlet rolled to the front of my brain. These words come at the beginning of the play: “There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” At the end, “We defy augury.” This great magical world is beyond our capacity to grasp. Still, we must try. And, like Hamlet, the best we can do is arrive at peace with our uncertain fate.

“If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come – the readiness is all.” Hamlet. Act V, ii

read Kerri’s blog post about HEAVEN AND EARTH

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Pick Up [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 17, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

unicorn store 4 copy

I fell into the word “providence” because of a contradiction. Its synonyms are fate, destiny, kismet and predestination. No surprise there. Yet, also mingling among the synonyms list are these words: chance, circumstance, luck, and accident. As if that was not contradiction enough, also on the list is the winner of the most-foreboding-word prize: nemesis. The inescapable agent of your downfall.

What if your destiny is also your nemesis? That Loch Ness monster of words, “curse,” rises to the surface.

I’ve coached many, many people in my life. The majority were attempting to identify their “purpose” or somehow reach beyond an obstacle to fully inhabit “what they were meant to do.” They felt providence was calling and they couldn’t get to the phone. Or, they felt providence was calling and were afraid to answer the phone. Sometimes the dream arrives and the dreamer runs for cover. What if the dream rips off the cover and exposes the truth-of-me? And, why would destiny call if I couldn’t pick up? Is destiny cruel?

Providence or chance? Are we supported in this vast universe or is it all a matter of happenstance? Or, peel the paint from the question and it’s possible it’s not about kismet at all. It’s about the desire to control or at least an explanation that makes sense. Who doesn’t want to feel in control their destiny? Who doesn’t want to believe that they are supported, blessed, guided, or destined? And what happens to that dedicated belief when the hurricane comes or COVID?

And, what if none of that matters? Aesop reminds us that curses might be blessings and vice versa. Perspective reveals both faces so why get wrapped up either way?

What if that hard puritan word, purpose, was softened just a bit by the equal but more-to-the point-phrase: follow your heart. Purpose is a head-word. A true calling or yearning never comes from that head place. A heart calls. Purpose likes to be sought.

Listening to my clients, I wrote these two sentences more times than I can count: The actions we need to take are almost always easy. The story we wrap around the actions make them seem difficult. The steps are simple. The story wrapped around the simplicity is often full of shame, fear, and that most mighty horror-of -horrors: failure. What if I fail? Better not answer that providence phone or dare to dream! Look to the actions. Take one.

Hearts call. That often looks like caring and caring almost always begs for an action. One  simple action. And another.  A step toward a true heart-call promises abundant surprise but never-ever comes with a guarantee.

 

read Kerri’s blog post about CARING AND FAILURE

I’m baking Kerri a cake with a file baked in it so that she might escape the Facebook jail. In case the FB guards eat the cake (and, therefore, detect the file) before it makes it to my dainty duck, it might be a good idea to subscribe to her blog. Unless I can bust her out, she might be in lock up for sometime to come.

 

 

HH waves feet website box copy

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed under: Language, Merely A Thought Monday, Navel Gazing, Perspective, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Touch The Chair [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on March 16, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

healing copy

I am reading books slowly these days. Meditating on words. Sometimes it takes me months to read what I used to blow through in a few days. I am often pleasantly surprised and taken aback by how the words I read on this morning – words written months or years ago – line up exactly with the events of my day. All the time I catch myself thinking, “How did they know I needed to hear that today?”

“There was an altar upon which we could place a photo of someone who had died. Kim chose to put a picture of his “old” self; I found one of him rowing his peapod looking so happy, so strong. Beautiful. We both grieve the loss of that Kim while getting to know and love this new one.” ~ Judy Friesem, Summoned By A Stroke.

Grieve the loss. This is the fourth time in my life that world circumstance/events have drawn a hard line between ‘what was’ and ‘who-knows-what-will-become.’ What was normal and true last week will never again be the same. Social distancing. Pandemic. Disruption is scary and confusing.

I’ve many times heard the story of immigrants, preparing to leave their homes forever for some distant and unknown shore, just before leaving, circle the rooms, touching walls, running their fingers along the arm of a well-loved chair. One last look. This is who I was. Who will I become? It is necessary to mourn what is known before making space for the unknown.

In the midst of spinning change, hanging on too long to the way things-ought-to-be or used-to-be is destructive. More than once I’ve stood with a group in full denial of their new circumstance insisting that “This is the way we’ve always done it!”  Perhaps. What is comfortable today was at one time new and uncomfortable. Someday, what is now new and uncomfortable will be a well worn path. The first step: one last look. This is who we were.

“No person is a finished thing, regardless of how frozen or paralysed their self image might be. Each one of us is in a state of perennial formation. Carried within the flow of time, you are coming to be who you are in every new emergent moment.” ~John O’Donohue, Beauty

Imagination lives in the midst of “It happened to me.” One of our greatest super-powers is the capacity to imagine ourselves different, more expansive. It is what we call dreaming. We “see” ourselves” writing the book or scaling the mountain or being a better parent or working at the soup kitchen or losing the weight or…becoming the more perfect union.

Imagination requires leaving. Leaving requires imagination.

“Fate has a way of handing us what we need in order to become whole…” ~ Judy Friesem, Summoned By A Stroke

 

read Kerri’s blog post about HEALING

 

moon website box copy

 

 

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Call It In The Air! [It’s Flawed Cartoon Wednesday]

Posted on April 25, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

A spot of Flawed Cartoon humor from studio melange.

MiceCheese Bigcopy copy 2

Is it a game of chance or is the toss rigged? I, too, am an idealistic, trusting mouse and never think to check the coin or calculate the odds before the toss. And, another question comes to mind: even if I know where to find my cheese, is the cheese worth the pursuit?

Existential questions from the melange to further confound your Wednesday.

 

CALL IT IN THE AIR products we designed are sold at Society6.com

MICE CHEESE product box template jpeg copy

 

read kerri’s blog post about CALL IT IN THE AIR

 

www.kerrianddavid.com

call it in the air ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood

 

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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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Make Purple

Posted on March 10, 2017 by davidrobinsoncreative

Polynieces and Eteocles

I dug out an old drawing this morning. I’ve been thinking about it for days and finally decided to heed the impulse and find it. I drew it years ago, a study for a large canvas I intended to execute but the timing wasn’t right or the thought was not complete. I can’t remember. It would have been a statement piece, based on a myth. Polynieces and Eteocles, two brothers fighting for control of the kingdom after the death of their father, Oedipus. They refused to share the riches. They lost sight of the kingdom in their lust for control and killed each other in their battle. Both lost.

I remembered the drawing after reading the daily news. It popped into my head as an image that seemed relevant as I listened to the intensity and insanity of the blues and the reds. These days I hear a lot of rhetoric about what is good for “the American people” and I am certain – it is among the dwindling things I am certain of – that these diverging rhetorical paths are not good for anyone. The kingdom is nowhere to be found, so lost are we in the power struggle, the alternative-truth-games and all of the accompanying hyperbole.

Recently 20 came over for dinner. He read to us a disturbing article from the newspaper and asked, “So, do you think we have it all upside down?” It was, of course, a rhetorical question. The article was from a February 12th issue of The New York Times, Husbands Are Deadlier Than Terrorists, by Nicholas Kristof. It was an appeal to stay focused on what matters in the midst of so many smoke-and-mirror-power-play intentions. It was a plea to not be lost in the diversions:

            “Consider two critical issues: refugees and guns. Trump is going berserk over the former, but wants to ease the rules on the latter….In the four decades between 1975 and 2015, terrorists born in the seven nations in Trump’s travel ban killed zero people in America, according to the Cato Institute. Zero.

            In that same period, guns claimed 1.34 million lives in America, including murders, suicides and accidents. That’s about as many people as live in Boston and Seattle combined.”

           It’s also roughly as many Americans as died in all the wars in American history since the American Revolution….”

There is, admittedly, much to fear in this world but it is rarely where we pin the blame. Insanity almost never recognizes itself.

According to the myth, Oedipus put a curse on his sons. That was the reason they could not peacefully share the rule of the kingdom. It was a curse. They couldn’t help it. So, it was their fate. No lesson learned. No growth possible.

We have a long legacy of using inequity to create and reinforce division. Perhaps that is the curse we inherited? That is the “reason” we cannot find common ground and shared governance? Is it our fate to murder each other and project the danger onto the people least capable of defending themselves: the current wave of immigrants? It seems lazy but certainly appears to be effective.

It might now be time to execute my painting. I’ve lately been focusing on grace and images of internal peace. I seem to be out of accord with the times in which I am living. According to the data we are killing each other faster, more efficiently and more eagerly than any external threat. All the while our ruling class seems singularly devoted to keeping us in primary color-coded camps rather than working with the creative tension that moves divisions in a unified direction. And, we seem singularly devoted to playing along, not a hint of purple to be found.

Art is, after all, an expression of who we are and I can find no other more relevant American image. It will, of course, be a symphony of reds and blues.

 

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