Make Peace [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 17, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Look closely. There’s a turtle motoring through the water, scooting along the muddy bottom of the river. Turtles always elicit squeaks from Kerri. We watched this shelled-wonder for a long time. There were a few others that caught my attention, heads rising just above the water, floating peacefully in a pose of suspended animation. Turtle tai-chi.

We went to a sound meditation at the Botanical Gardens. Singing bowls and rain sticks. I was transported. I felt as if I was gifted with a turtle-moment: floating in a calm suspended animation. I recognized that feeling of ease and vowed to practice it more often. There’s wisdom in non-motion. Non-resistance. Flow by another name.

We were awake deep in the night. She asked if I could remember the places I’ve lived in my life – specifically the apartments and houses. Mostly she wanted to know if I could remember living-in-them. Making dinner. Doing laundry. How they felt. The sounds and smells. For me, there have been many. Most were creative spaces. Most of my living spaces were also studio spaces. Sacred spaces. Quiet places.

I don’t remember the day-to-day. I remember the place and time that I decided I was going to learn to cook. It was a statement of self-care. It was a decision to make all the world my studio and not just the places where I painted. Moving out from a solid center, joining the world, rather than closing off from the noise. Making peace with my out-of-step-ness. It was a decision to move into the chaotic world, to crawl with abandon and explore the river’s muddy bottom.

That reminds me of a Flawed Cartoon.

read Kerri’s blogpost about TURTLES

like it. share it. comment? coffee (qr or link). thanking you for all.

Filed under: Awakening, Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Metaphor | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Return To The Nest [on DR Thursday]

Posted on May 4, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

In a few weeks we will travel to a small town in Iowa for my dad’s inurnment. It is the town of his birth. Although he never lived there during his adult life, it is the place he called home. It is somehow appropriate that we will take him home in spring.

I’ve had plenty of time to think about the coming ritual. It’s now associated for me with the birth of the bunnies in our backyard. We watched the momma-rabbit dig the nest but thought she’d rejected the spot once she’d experienced our enthusiastic dog who regularly terrorizes critters in the backyard. She knew what she was doing. We discovered the truth the day we caught Dogga proudly carrying a baby bunny around in his mouth. He dropped the bunny, unharmed. We went on a 24/7 backyard bunny watch.

Once, sitting on the deck watching the terrorist Dogga run circles, I decided to check out the nest. I stopped in my tracks when I realized two babies were gnawing on grass just inches from my feet. They hopped back to their nest. I watched as they disappeared into the safety of the dark void.

The dark void. The safety of the nest.

Years ago I started a painting. My dad emerging from a field of corn. Or returning to the field of corn. I’m not sure why I painted it. He often talked of his desire to return to his hometown but he could never find a way to make a living there. His yearning seemed profound. I suppose my painting was an attempt to understand the anchor of “home”; I have been a wanderer so his longing seemed incomprehensible.

Watching the bunnies race for their nest and disappear into the comfort of darkness sent a shock of recognition through me. It helped me understand. Away from his nest, he felt like an alien in a confusing frenetic world. In that place, he felt safe. Known. He understood the rules. He knew the stories. He was attuned to the pace.

It is somehow appropriate. We will take him home, return him to his nest, in spring.

I’m still working on my site...go here to see my continued indecision

read Kerri’s blogpost about BUNNIES

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Metaphor | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Listen To The Snow [on DR Thursday]

Posted on January 26, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

It’s snowing and it’s making me feel like wrapping in a blanket. Cozy and reassuring.

The tall grasses are bowing with the weight of the snow. It’s beautiful. It’s quiet. The kind of quiet that only happens in a snowfall, like the world stands still and listens. We stood with our coffee and looked out the kitchen window at the enormous flakes falling. Quiet outside, quiet inside.

Yesterday we were in Florida. Bill called it paradise. I disagree. For me, paradise has seasons, an open window at night, the cold air driving me deeper beneath the quilts. Paradise calls me outside to walk. Paradise includes the infinite space that opens with the hush of the snow, when world rests and takes note. It makes the green shoots of spring that much more magical. Difference hones appreciation.

It’s good to be home. The snow serves as a welcoming committee. “Welcome back,” it whispers, reminding us of life’s rhythms, “It’s time to recharge.”

I look at my list of things to do and decide that I will listen to the snow. Today is a day to rejuvenate. To stand at the window and listen.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SNOW

In Serenity, 46×30, mixed media [my site is down and under construction]

in serenity © david robinson

Filed under: DR Thursday, Gratitude | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Listen To The Call [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on October 18, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

For the past 25 years, I have lived next to water. My Seattle apartment was steps away from Puget Sound. The lighthouse was just around the corner. My Wisconsin home is a block away from Lake Michigan. The sounds of the lake are the soundtrack of our life. A curious elemental flip for a man born at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.

It begs a question.

A few weeks ago, I needed to supply casual bio-pictures for a project. Kerri showed me photographs we’ve taken of each other, some in the Colorado mountains. It was startling. There’s something different about the photos of us in mountain pictures. “We’re different people,” she said. “You can see it. It’s where we belong.”

I could see it. My language: in the mountains, we are in our bodies. Fully. Present. No where else to be. Home.

It makes sense for me to feel the deep rhythm of the mountains. Kerri was born and raised on Long Island yet she comes alive in aspen forests, on the trail just above Breckenridge. The western slope. The mountain song reaches her inner being and she sings it back to the mountain. In the photos, she is radiant. At peace.

We walk along the lake all the time. We talk about how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful place. We are in awe of the power and changing faces of this mysterious lake. And, that’s precisely the point. The Lake is mysterious in its power. To us, the pulse of the mountains is known.

read Kerri’s blogpost about LONG SHADOW

Filed under: Identity, Navel Gazing, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Find Your Way [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on May 24, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

I will never forget the day I followed the stream, watching the life-ending struggle of the salmon as they fought the current the final mile to return to their place of origin, their spawning ground. To the local people, the people who tended the hatchery, the salmon were gods. Gods or not, watching their struggle to return was sacred. The utter necessity to continue life through the next generation – as the final act of life. Cathedral building.

We brought home a Selenite crystal. It is raw, translucent, gorgeous. A Google search of its properties reveals that it promotes calm and provides clarity. I’ve never actually been invested in the debate about whether or not a crystal has powers. I’ve made the association so, when I look at it or hold it, I have in my mind that we brought this beautiful crystal home to elevate our spirits. And, so it does.

I live in the golden age of marketing. I’m told that a new truck will make me sexy, the latest medication will make my life a snap, that a pizza delivery will bring my family together like never before. Status and power are available through the purchase of machines and clothes. One year, no interest. We buy these messages, filling our closets with passing satisfaction. Is the fulfillment of a new pair of shoes imagined, less-than-genuine? We are consumers so doesn’t it make sense that contentment lasts no more than a spin through the washing cycle? Momentarily satisfied. What’s next?

I suppose the question is whether or not the crystal brings peace to me or do I bring more calm to my day because I’ve surrounded myself with messages – and, therefore, intentions – of serenity?

I know without doubt that a new truck will not imbue me with sex appeal. Yet, I have a pair of jeans that I save for the days that I want “to look good.”

Skip drove two days to find the sun so that he might stand in it and rejuvenate. I go to the basement and stand amidst the boxes that currently fill my studio and stare at a large blank canvas. Like the sun, it rejuvenates me. Yesterday, the nurse at the community health clinic said she loved her job because she felt that she was really helping the people who need her the most, “There are better rewards than money,” she said. Imagine the necessity – the hope – she brings to her life and work. Rejuvenation.

I do not know whether we are gods or not, but our struggle to find our way home is no less beautiful or fraught than the salmon. It is breathtaking, this swim upstream. Confusing. Sacred.

read Kerri’s blogpost about CRYSTALS

Filed under: Energy, Identity, Metaphor, Pattern, Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Welcome Home [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on September 1, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

The people that bought my parent’s home flipped it in a few months. They remodeled the bathrooms and updated the kitchen. They refaced the fireplace. They pulled up the carpet and refinished the hardwood floors. It was gorgeous. It was a surprising chapter of what has become my unintentional 2021 mediation: home. At the beginning of the summer, after days of hauling and cleaning, as my last act before leaving for good, Kerri suggested that I crawl into the cedar closet of my boyhood bedroom (I loved sitting in that closet as a boy) and sign my name. A sweet goodbye and thank you. Home is a memory.

It was only a few months ago that we moved my mom into her “new home.” She wanders the halls and we know that time is the only cure for what she seeks. Home, for her, will be a feeling that finds her, at last, only after the wear and tear in the rooms is of her making. Her pacing is wearing a trail, carving a path. Home is a feeling.

In the past 8 months my dad has moved three times into his “new home.” Memory care facilities are surprisingly inept at caring for elders who’ve lost their memories. High price. Low care. Everything is a business: a theme/rant for another post. In his current home, finally, he feels safe and, after a trip out, wants to return to his room. Home is safety.

Before his memory was gone, we took my dad back to his hometown, Monticello, Iowa. His primary need was to show us the tiny Home that his grandfather built. It’s the place where his dad was born. It is across the yard from where he was born. His tales were glorious in their hardship. They needed very little to make good memories. Today, the tiny house built with no money and huge heart is a storage shed but through my father’s eyes it was nothing short of a castle. I will always savor the image of him standing in front of his Home. Home is an origin and an anchor.

When we pull into the driveway, after a long trip or a jaunt to the store, we always greet our home, “Hello, happy house!” Our home feels alive, a presence or being. The walls carry our story. The rooms remember and replay the voices of her children. We’re packing a lot of story into the walls of our old house. It is packing a lot of story into us. Home is a relationship.

When we came upon the woodpecker-condo-tree, Brad said in jest, “Why don’t you stick your hand in there.” We laughed. “I told him I’d be like the monkey with its fist in the coconut, I wouldn’t be able to let go of the critter inside and also wouldn’t be able to get my fist out of the small hole. I’d be stuck on the trail forever. The woodpecker condo would be my new home. Kerri and Jen were inspecting the perfect circles. It felt good to be on a walk with them. It had been a long time since we’d had the chance to just hang out. Home is a friendship.

We had tacos at Jay and Charlies with the Up North gang. Jay showed us her new porch. We sat in the shade and drank margaritas and laughed. I told Jay that her porch and yard felt serene. She smiled and told me that it was her sanctuary. I was, for a moment, completely overwhelmed by how much life we’ve walked with these special people. Passages. We’ve shared and received so much support – immediate presence when need arose – from our stalwart gang. Sanctuary. Home is a community.

It’s just as the needlepoint declares: Home is sweet.

read Kerri’s blog post on Home Sweet Home

Filed under: Family, Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Love, Story | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Walk As WaWo [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 31, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

It was past 3am when Kerri asked me if I wanted to “watch a trail.” We were wide awake. The air was hot and still. We’d recently stumbled upon The Wander Women: Kristy, Annette, and Lynn, woman our age, walking the PCT. They’re doing a flip flop, having started their hike in the middle of the 2600 mile trail and walking to Canada, then, they’ll return to the center point and walk the distance to Mexico. We watched the installment, posted this week, as they reached the Canadian border.

Still wide awake, we went to their channel and listened as they answered questions about their hike of the Appalachian Trail. They are sirens of the possible, guides of give-it-a-try. They are not hikers who pound out miles to reach a goal. As Kristy said, “We want to enjoy every single moment.” Their yoga is a matter-of-fact-presence. They plan and improvise; both/and.

We’ve listened to more than one Q&A with the Wander Women. In an answer to their follower’s questions about living full time in an RV and life on the trail, Annette responded, “Home is where we put up our tent. You carry home inside yourself.” It was the answer of someone who’d transcended their stuff. It was the response of someone who’d internalized her security.

We couldn’t plug our windows with air conditioners this summer. We had too much of isolation last year. We needed to hear the birdsong and feel the summer air. We knew that would bring uncomfortable days, humid and hot nights. We have always walked our neighborhood and the local trails, but our decision to feel-the-summer pulled us more out-of-doors than usual. We extended the sanctuary of our sunroom out onto the deck. We placed torches along the patio and fixed the lights around the pond.

Each evening, after our work is done, we sit outside in our ever-expanding sanctuary. We listen to the cicadas. The cardinals and the chipmunks vie for a place at the bird feeder. Sitting at our table I had a mini-revelation about why I was so enjoying The Wander Women and following the few couples also out on the trail and posting weekly updates. They talk about the community of support that they find in the trail. It is often unexpected and yet ubiquitous. Both/and. They offer a staunch counter narrative to the horror we hear in the news, the contention and division. There are people dedicated to helping them and they, in turn, are dedicated to helping others. “You can do this!” they say to anyone listening. “We’ll help you do this,” their followers echo back to them. They broadcast friendship, kindness and support.

It is a breath of fresh air, a sparkling optimism for the best in humanity. It rises on the trail. Generosity that cultivates generosity. Hope that is grounded in the experience of the unprotected, the heat and cold and bugs and rain and challenge of being-what-they-are-doing. Shared experience. Sanctuary. Here. Everywhere.

read Kerri’s blog post about SANCTUARY

Filed under: Heroes, Metaphor, Possibility, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Listen To The House [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 9, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Our house is telling a tale. If you wandered through the rooms you’d see two related intentions. First, there is a transformation in the sunroom that reaches into the outside spaces, the deck and patio. They are now designed for quiet and for simple gathering. They are beautiful no matter which direction that you look. We are attending to our peace-of-mind. The ripple is reaching into all of the rooms.

Second, the dining room is full of bins and boxes. The table is a place for sorting and reviewing. We are cleaning out. We are making space. We are letting go of non-essentials.

My favorite part of both intentions is that there is no rush. Our cleanse is not manic. Our space-creation is rolling, meditative, fluid. We are, quite literally, taking our time. Appreciating our time, our space, our sanctuary. We are using dishes that have never been used, attending to the beauty as well as the taste of our meals.

We are not spending vast sums of money to achieve our design. In fact, almost none-at-all. We’ve bought a few plants. Some pillows. Replacement bulbs for the string of outdoor lights. We are mostly working with what we have. Rearranging. Eliminating.

As Heather once told me, what you do outside you are also doing inside. I hope she is right in that. It implies that, inside, we are making our peace-of-mind a priority. We are removing much of the clutter from our souls. Cleaning out the garbage bag or, perhaps, simply letting-go-the-non-essential-fight. Taking stock. Making space. Appreciating the day.

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

read Kerri’s blog post about the FIRE TOWER

taking stock/right now ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Emergence, Gratitude, KS Friday, Story | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Come Home [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 1, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“I search for the realness, the real feeling of a subject, all the texture around it…I always want to see the third dimension of something…I want to come alive with the object.” ~ Andrew Wyeth

The first time I walked into this house, I felt that I’d come home. It was a potent moment because I’d never felt that before, not in my entire life. I was a wanderer, even as a small child.

I’d come to meet this woman named Kerri. I’d been writing emails to her daily for the previous six months. A job afforded me the opportunity to stop over and meet her face-to-face. She picked me up at the airport [she was the one holding the daisy], we held hands and skipped to the car, talked non-stop during the hour-plus drive from O’Hare airport. When we arrived at the house, I laughed when she asked me to wait at the front door. She wanted me to come into the house through the front door but the key hadn’t worked in years, so she ran around back to come through the house to let me in. When the door opened, with my rolly-bag in tow, I stepped into the house and caught my breath. I almost started to cry but inhaled my overwhelm back into my body. Home. I knew this place.

It was a festival of texture. Raw wood exposed through the aging, flaking paint. Immediately I could see that this woman populated her world with stories, surrounded herself with rocks and wood and tin. She lived in a tangible world, loved the raw and the real, and had a designer’s eye. The dining room was a miracle of tortoise-esque pattern made when she stripped the wallpaper. She loved it so much that she abandoned her plan for paint and left the marks exposed.

This was an artist’s house. The hardwood floors creaked. Some of the antique door handles popped off if you pulled too hard. “It’s an old house and has its quirks,” she explained as she pulled a screwdriver from the silverware drawer to tighten the screw that holds the screen door latch in place. I learned over time that there are somethings you fix and others that you don’t because to fix them would interrupt the relationship with the house. Now I, too, weekly pull the screwdriver from the silverware drawer and tighten the aged-nearly-stripped-screw that holds the screen door latch in place.

Shabby-chic. They gave her style a name and she beamed the first time she heard it. “That’s me!” she exclaimed, “Shabby-Chic!”

When my dad came for our wedding, he stood on the back deck and said to me, “If you don’t put a finish on this deck, you’re going to lose it.” I told him that Kerri liked it that way. In fact, she’d throw herself in my path, she’d break my fingers, if I attempted to clean it, let alone paint it. He nodded and said, “Well, that’s all that matters really.”

Home. All that matters. Alive with stories that reach back and back and back. Texture and piles and projects everywhere I look. The lock on the front door still doesn’t work. And, like my wife, Kerri, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

read Kerri’s blog post on SHABBY-CHIC

Filed under: Family, Gratitude, Love, Seeing, Story, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Turn Out The Lights [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on May 11, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

There are first-times and there are last-times. I occurred to me, as we sat on the back porch of the house where I grew up, watching the sun go down, that this night would be a last-time. In the morning we would drive away and never again come back to this place.

We’d driven to Colorado to move my mom into an independent living community. The move was complete. The house nearly empty. My sister was coming to finish the clean-out and clean-up and then the house would be sold.

Kerri is much more “thready” than I am. She leads with her heart and feels deeply the story-threads that extend back through time. With the sun beneath the horizon, the light of the house beckoning, we talked of what it must feel like for my mom to leave this house after 54 years. We talked of the turtle that buried itself in the window well each fall and would claw its way back into the sunlight each spring. Climbing the crab apple tree when it, too, was young. Camping in the back yard in a musty green canvas tent. Riding bikes around the driveway in mock stock car race fashion. The Irish mail. Volleyball, basketball, and cranking ice cream on hot summer days. The small rituals that largely go unnoticed until the last-times, the experiences that fill life full-to-bursting.

These rich, amazing moments that we call ordinary, that happen with ease every single day, that pass unnoticed or unappreciated until the-last-time.

She asked me what I felt and my answer surprised me. “Relieved,” I said. “Just relieved.”

Tired, we went into the house, closed the back door, and turned out the lights. Last time.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE LAST TIME

Filed under: Family, Gratitude, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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