fragile life | The Direction of Intention

Light A Candle [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 17, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Often, when archiving her photographs, Kerri gives them a title. This one she named Delicate. “Like life,” she said.

Today we light a candle. We light them when we are commemorating an anniversary of loss, the passing of someone we love. The light of remembrance. “He’s been gone 31 years,” she sighed as we placed the candle in the jar, touched fire to the wick. Today we remember her big brother Wayne.

Our remembrance is rarely maudlin. We tell stories. We laugh. I’m particularly grateful for this candle-day because I never met Wayne. He was gone years before I arrived on the scene. But I feel as if I knew him because Kerri’s stories of her brother are rich in memory-texture. Visceral. Deeply rooted. And all roads lead to his love of coffee ice cream so I’m certain he and I would have been great pals.

As I’ve written in the past, the first words that Kerri spoke to me were “I don’t do nutshells.” It’s true. If you desire brevity you’ve come to the wrong place. She layers detail on top of detail in her storytelling of the world. And, she assures me that she is nothing compared to her brother, Wayne. His detail of details had details. An engineer’s mind. An inventor’s heart. An epic storyteller.

In the past few weeks we’ve had more than one reminder of life’s fragility. Dear ones wading through sudden, momentous and scary health challenges. A cousin passing. News of a friend too soon gone. More candle-days.

There’s the stereotype, old folks sitting on the porch recollecting days gone by. When I was younger I thought rocking chair reminiscence was inertia, life winding down. Nothing else to do. I had it all wrong. It turns out that elders tell stories of the past because they are verbally lighting a candle. They are keeping alive the memory of someone they loved. They are feeding the river of life. They are passing love forward.

Thirty one years ago. Today we light a candle. Today we tell stories of Wayne.

read Kerri’s blogpost about WAYNE

[Bonus track]

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Filed under: Family, Love, Merely A Thought Monday | Tagged: anniversary, artistry, brother, commemorate, composer, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, delicate, fragile life, fragility, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, loss, memory, remembering, remembrance, reminisce, reminiscence, story, studio melange, the melange | 2 Comments »

See The Dance [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on October 26, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“You can only push the truth down for so long, and then it bubbles back up.” ~ Cassandra Clare

“Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul.” ~ D.H. Lawrence

Last night we made a fire in the fire pit. We decided to have a pop-up dinner by the fire so we set up our table, lit candles, poured some wine, and brought our dinner out under the stars on a chilly October night. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky so we looked at the stars. We wondered if the brightest lights were planets.

There are many, many works of art from a genre in the Middle Ages known as the Dance Macabre. Dance with death. The scary images were meant to remind people of life’s fragility, its passing nature. They were also meant to point out the obvious: we are all united in our final destination. No one is better or worse than any other in the grand scheme of things, in the Dance Macabre. In the Middle Ages, the allegory was meant to suggest it was best to aim your focus at the afterlife. Do good works as an investment in your future or go to the fiery place below.

Were I to paint a series of Dance Macabre images today, my intent would be the exact opposite: aim your eyes at this moment. There is nothing more precious or wonder-full than this moment. If there is a heaven, it is now. And, it will go unnoticed if the dance is not acknowledged. There is no sadder phrase on earth than, “Same-old-same-old.”

According to some cultures, I am now in sacred space. I’m seeing all things relative to my dad’s recent passing. Sitting by the fire, our dinner complete, we talked about his death and my inability lately to invest too much emotional energy in anything. Things that would have upset me a few months ago barely register. I’m watching the usual list of anxieties and worries drop off. Why would I give an ounce of my wonder to something so…small? Perspective is the gift of the dance macabre. Clarity of sight and intention comes with this kind of perspective.

We clinked our glasses, the cold night and the heat from the fire colliding around us under the stars. DogDog slept on the deck, a few feet away. We realized our moment. Fully. Magic was alive, bubbling everywhere.

read Kerri’s blog post about BUBBLES