kerrianddavid.com | The Direction of Intention

Witness The Tide [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 6, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“You’ll know you are doing something important,” Tom McK said, “by the size of the tide that rises against you.” He spoke those words to me thirty years ago and yet, each day in these un-united-united-states, I hear his voice in my head. Look at the size of the tide rising against BLM. Witness the extraordinary measures Republicans are taking to block access to the vote, to gerrymander and obstruct, to deny an insurrection on the institutions they are sworn to serve.

Based on the tide of resistance, equality for all must be mighty important. Especially since it is central to our rhetoric, the ideal that we espouse.

As a nation we’ve just celebrated the 4th of July, independence day.

Juneteenth was just celebrated for the first time as a national holiday. The Emancipation day of enslaved African Americans.

Are you reading, as I am, of the tsunami of resistance to Critical Race Theory? In a nation that essentially legislated slavery into existence, legislated that black people were lesser-humans, legislated slavery out of existence but created a series of laws enforcing segregation, Jim Crow laws, it wouldn’t be threatening to suggest that racism is embedded in our laws. It’s in our tax codes. In banking practices. It is, today, being legislated in voter restriction laws across this nation. Laws. Laws. Laws.

What’s the big deal with stating the obvious?

Here is the definition of Critical Race Theory: “…that race is a social construct, and that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies.” [Education Week]

Perhaps stating the obvious is the big deal.

It leaves me wondering (not really) why we as a nation are so resistant to telling our story – our full story. The size of the tide rising against the full story is – and always has been – breathtaking. We forget that this American experiment is just that, an experiment. And, just as no human can ultimately succeed standing on a lie, no nation can succeed until it comes clean with itself.

When the full story of our nation rises to be told, the forces of suppression have always risen with it. Witness the tide. It must be a very important story that, for all of our sake, needs a full telling.

read Kerri’s blog post about RBG

Filed under: Identity, Perspective, Story, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: bias, BLM, Critical Race Theory, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, history, Juneteenth, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, laws, legal system, national story, prejudice, race, racism, RBG, social construct, story, studio melange, suppression | Leave a comment »

Ask A Coneflower [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 5, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

I was surprised to learn that Echinacea is a coneflower. Actually, the opposite is more correct. The coneflower is Echinacea. Filled with antioxidants, immunity booster, inflammation reducer, it is a heavy lifting herb. It’s also beautiful.

“I want to use the coneflower on Monday,” Kerri said. “It would have been Momma’s 100th birthday.” I asked if Beaky liked coneflowers and she smiled and said, “No. It’s just beautiful. And falling away. It just reminded me of my mom.”

Beautiful and falling away. I only knew Beaky for 18 months but felt as if I knew her a lifetime. She was rare and special. A gifted teller of stories. She was like the coneflower, filled with antioxidants, an inflammation reducer. I watched her more than once boost someone’s spirit, cool an angry intention. She was a dedicated see-er of the positive, a believer in the goodness of people. These days, those qualities are not easy to come by and even harder to cultivate.

On the morning that she was going into surgery, we wheeled her down the hall of the rehabilitation center en route to the ambulance. The staff lined the walls to wish her well, to cheer for her. It was a Beaky parade. I think the Beatles had it right: the love you take is equal to the love you make. She made people want to be better. She made me want to be better.

When taking your leave from her, she would always say, “Be kind to one another.” It’s a proper wish for all of us, a baseline expectation in a time of deep division. Beaky’s wish at age 100, I imagine, is the same as it was when she was 93 or 82 or 56 or 30. Be kind. One to another. The path to a better world is not so complicated after all. Just ask a simple coneflower.

read Kerri’s blog post about CONEFLOWERS

Filed under: Family, Heroes, Love, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: Antioxidant, Beaky, beautiful, Corn Flower, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Echinacea, immunity booster, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kind, kindness, simple wisdom, studio melange, the melange, wisdom | Leave a comment »

Note The Weather [saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on July 3, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’m the guy at the party that doesn’t mingle. I generally fall into a deep conversation with one person who is polite enough to fake interest in what I am saying. Kerri is trying to help me with my ineptitude. She tells me to “Gear down.” We’ve even developed hand signals so that she can communicate across a crowded room that I need to release my too-polite-listener from my diatribe.

At home, we need no hand signals. I know when I’ve crossed the line because I invoke an immediate hot flash in Kerri. It is my cue to hush up, lighten up or perhaps look up and note the weather.

read Kerri’s SMACK-DAB THOUGHTS

smack-dab. ©️ 2021 kerrianddavid.com

Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, gearing down, hot flash, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, marriage, middle age, rumination, second chances, smack-dab, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Mark The Passage [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 2, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Just after we met, we dug a small pond in the backyard. It was a party that Kerri called The Big Dig. People came with shovels. We drank mudslides. I met many of her friends and neighbors. We laughed. It took less than ten minutes with so many people to dig the hole. The liner went in and rocks placed around the edges. The pump was placed and the water rushed in. It was a marker in time. It was meant to be a marker, a ritual of passage into the new and the unknown.

She’d planned The Big Dig before we met. Originally, it had nothing to do with me. It was serendipity that I could be present for The Dig. Serendipity or design. Who knows.

The morning after the party, sipping coffee, we sat in lawn chairs on the muddy ground surrounding the now bubbling pond. Kerri used the “M” word, married, “When we are married…” She realized what she’d just said. She blushed and apologized and backpedaled. I was, at the very moment she used the “M” word, doing something I’d never done before: imagining myself married. To her. I was seeing it and, laughing at her anguished retreat, I confessed what I was seeing. We sat by the pond and stared at each other. A ritual passage into the new and unknown.

The pond has always been mine to care for. This marks its eighth year. We just replaced the liner. We had to put flagstone around the pond because DogDog was cutting a deep velodrome path around it, racing in excitement every time John and Michele let their Dachshunds out. Each day we walk to the pond to try and catch a glimpse of the frog-in-residence. This year we named the frog Magic.

Just a few days after The Big Dig, Kerri took me to the marina where the 4th of July celebrations are staged. Bands played. There was a carnival. Too much food. The dog jump is a big attraction (dogs running and leaping into a pool of water in a distance-leap competition). After dark we sat on a blanket and watched the fireworks. Sitting on that blanket, vibrant color exploding in the night sky, I imagined myself living in this town, so far from the west coast that had been my home most of my adult life. “Can I live here?” I asked myself. The answer was immediate: you can’t live anywhere else.

DogDog was born on the 4th of July, probably while we were watching the dog jump. We will celebrate his eighth birthday on Sunday with a rowdy race around the pond. His favorite thing. And then snacks. Also his favorite thing. And then a visit with Unka-John. His really, really favorite thing.

A step into the new and unknown. Ritual passages. You have no idea where they will take you or what the reality of the step over the threshold will bring. You cannot know. You can only step.

“This looks like fireworks,” she said, showing me the up-close-photo of the plant. “I love it,” she smiled.

“Me, too.”

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

read Kerri’s blog post about the FIREWORK PLANT

i didn’t know/this part of the journey ©️ 1998 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Family, KS Friday, Love, Uncategorized | Tagged: album - this part of the journey, composer, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Dog-Dog, fireworks, i didn't know, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, marriage, passages, pond, ritual, ritual passage, solo piano, story, studio melange, The Big Dig, this part of the journey | Leave a comment »

Find It [on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 1, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Although it probably does not appear this way to you, this photograph is the road back to my easel. It was an immediate inspiration. Kerri did not intend for it to spark the cold coals of my artistic fire, but it did. It was immediate. I couldn’t stop staring at it.

This painting is called Joy. Look at the floral shapes and lines both within and around the figure:

Many of my paintings of the past several years are floral wonderlands. They infuse the figures, they are bouncing balls of symbolic trees and oversized shrubbery. They remind me to have fun. To play and experiment. I must have forgotten all of that or turned away.

I hit a wall when I painted my red mess. It’s been on my easel for months. Beneath the red mess, the painting that I’d originally sketched on the canvas, is this:

I think I’d had too much of despair-and-comfort and needed to explode my themes. Thus, the red mess.

When Kerri showed me her photograph of tiny pink flowers, I saw the painting, this painting, complete in my imagination. Not despairing, but vibrant and subtle, alive with those amazing floral shapes, five-petal-bursts of life. Contemporary. Huge. Broad strokes. Almost a sculpture.

There is a story from Plato’s Symposium that I’m using as the basis for my script revision for The Creatures of Prometheus , the original human, cleaved by the gods because it was too powerful, searching through life to find its other half. This painting is (or will be) about the search for love, the transcendence of separation. Finding.

And, as you know, once it lives in the imagination, all that remains is the volition to get there.

read Kerri’s blog post about PINK FLOWERS

joy ©️ 2014 david robinson

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Edges, Love, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, floral, imagination, inspiration, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, painting, pco, plato, story, studio melange, symposium, the creatures of prometheus, volition | Leave a comment »

Find A Horizon [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on June 30, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Be not afraid of growing slowly, be only afraid of standing still.” ~ Chinese Proverb

Each morning, Kerri wanders outside to check her tomatoes. It is one of my favorite new rituals. I watch from the window as she steps out beyond the deck to the potting table, hands on hips, and scrutinizes the plants for newcomers. After a careful count she hurries back into the house to tell me the results of her count. Each day yields a new arrival. “There are ten!” she proclaimed this morning. Then, she took out her phone to show me the photos she’d taken. A family portrait of tomatoes. Miracles in the making.

Seasoned gardeners might not experience the same level of enthusiasm, but we newbies are wide-eyed at the little green orbs that show up overnight, at the basil plants spilling out of their pots.

It has already inspired new recipes. I blubbered on Sunday evening when I tasted the basil-and-tomato-saute over pasta. Food-that-makes-you-close-your-eyes-and-slow-down-so-that-you-can-savor-every-last-bit-of-it is high on my list of pleasures-to-be-cultivated.

We are learning. We are trying new things. We are setting up new spaces, rearranging furniture. At the same time, we are cleaning out, pulling bins from the basement. Sorting. Making space. The energy is moving.

In the past few years, our growth and learning has looked and felt like loss. Job losses, dear ones passing, broken wrists. Armor falling to the ground. Layers peeled. There’s nothing like time spent in the wilderness to put a fire beneath curiosity. When the questions are basic, “What do we do now?,” the available options are at the same time infinite and absent. There’s only one thing to be done and that is to keep moving. Find a horizon and walk toward it.

The tomatoes are harbingers. The season of losing layers may, at last, be done. There is now plenty of space for curiosity, for growing things. “What do we do now?” is still a question floating in the air. But, from our point of view, with the wasteland just behind us, we see the yellow buds and tiny green orbs as signaling a harvest to come. Hope. The energy is moving. A daily visit to the potting bench, rubbing basil leaves to enjoy the scent, seems like just the right amount of forward movement.

read Kerri’s blog post about TOMATOES

Filed under: Emergence, Energy, Metaphor, Possibility | Tagged: basil, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, energy, food, garden, growth, harbinger, hopeful, horizon, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, loss, making space, movement, pleasure, ritual, savoring, sorting, spaciousness, studio melange, tomatoes | Leave a comment »

Step Across [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 29, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

We just spent a few minutes looking at the Melange archive. This is week 177. One of the gifts of blogging-your-random-thoughts-five-days-a-week is that people write back. A particular post hits a nerve. Agreements and disagreements. My story invites your story and, occasionally, you share the details. Lydia knows that I am in an artistic dry spell so she is sending me inspiration and encouragement. I could not be more grateful.

We keep a running count of the countries that show up in our analytics. 72 to date. “Who do we know in Pakistan?” Kerri asks. We take delight in the thinnest threads of relationship that are now woven through our story: if Alex in Malta doesn’t “like” one of my posts by day’s end I worry about Alex in Malta. Or, I wonder if what I wrote was substandard. The same goes with Dwight – but I know Dwight – and can hear his mighty laughter in my head. I’m glad his laughter is so deeply ingrained in my being. If he doesn’t “like” a post, it’s a sure bet that he’s helping someone in trouble and can’t be bothered to read at the moment.

Kerri and I sit next to each other when we write. The rule is that we can’t peek. We start with the same prompt and write whatever bubbles to the top. Sometimes it is remarkably similar. Sometimes it is a different universe entirely. And then, we read to each other. And talk. She always begins her reading with a disclaimer. I always need a bit of editing. When I read to her, she holds up a finger with each misspelling or grammatical gaffe, so she can remember how many corrections need to be made. Occasionally I make it through an entire reading with no fingers.

When I imagine my perfect life it has, at its center, a long table where we gather together and share meals and stories. It occurred to me a few weeks ago that I have, in metaphor, created my long table. MM sends stories and connected thoughts, Judy affirms, Horatio lets me know when a thought lands in his court. Each painting, each post, each composition, each cartoon that we create, is an invitation to come to the table.

Looking out to look in. Looking in to reach out. An artist’s life is nothing more than stepping across separations. I am fortunate to have so many helping me step. I am fortunate to have so many bringing their thoughts and hearts to the table.

When Kerri first showed me this photograph, I didn’t see the ladybug. I was thrown into a memory. Kit Peak observatory, looking through the eyepiece of a telescope into a star cluster. I never felt so small yet so connected. Her photograph evoked the same feeling. The flower seen up close is a radiant sun. The image almost knocked me over. And then, there was a ladybug. An explorer. So small, so big. Riding the petal, surfing the radiant light.

It’s enough to make me want to write.

read Kerri’s blog post about LADYBUGS

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Gratitude, Metaphor, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: art, artist, artistry, blogging, composition, connected, connectivity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, inner life, inner reaches of outer space, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Kit Peak, ladybug, metaphor, painting, photography, relationship, star cluster, studio melange, writing | Leave a comment »

Answer The Call [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 28, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

I have an old iPhone. Sometimes it doesn’t ring when people try to call. The sound of the message coming into my inbox is the first clue that someone is trying to reach me. Yesterday, when I heard the alert, I was unloading stone from the car so I didn’t check it right away. I wish I had. It was my dad.

His message was 12 seconds long and most of it was confusion and labored breathing. He is famous for removing his oxygen when no one is around and, in his advancing dementia, he will sometimes accidentally dial my number when he is lost in the story-in-his-mind. I treasure these brief touches, these calls, when I hear the phone and answer. We talk. He’ll stay on the phone and, even when he is panicked, he shares his story. My goal always is to convince him to go to the door and tell someone that he needs help with his oxygen. No one can help him with his story.

I tried twice to return his call but he did not pick up.

The theme of this season is life-cycle. We’ve enjoyed the peonies bud-to-blossom-to-fade. Each step of the process has been gorgeous. In the lingering season of pandemic we are, like many people in the nation, paying attention to our backyard. We’re making it our sanctuary and have already spent many an evening sitting on the deck, the mourning dove singing to us from the trees.

We had the opportunity to visit a local college. It is a new campus. It’s the old newspaper building, transformed. This quote is stenciled on the wall: Your life has purpose. Your story is important. Your dreams count. Your voice matters. You were born to make an impact. It’s a good message for anyone but particularly students trying to find their way into the world. People at the beginning of their story.

It’s also a good message for people at the end of their story, making their way out of the world, though it is not the same as a statement of reflection as one of aspiration. It has more punch.

Were I a teacher at this college, I would tell my students, new buds on the peony, not to worry so much about mattering. Assume it to be true.

I would teach them that they might spend their whole lives trying to make a mark and none of it will matter so much as answering the phone. Your voice will matter. You will have an impact.

No story that you tell will be more important than the story you concoct to get Columbus out of his chair, to shuffle to the door of his room, so he can say to someone, anyone, “Will you help me to breathe.”

read Kerri’s blog post about LIFE PURPOSE

Filed under: Family, Love, Story | Tagged: columbus, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dementia, impact, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life cycle, life purpose, mattering, meaning, meaning making, old age, purpose, story, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Appreciate The Nectar [saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on June 26, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

My dad called coffee ‘the nectar of the gods.’ It has special properties that I am only now beginning to fully appreciate. The-nectar-of-the-gods was wasted on me when I was young. I didn’t appreciate it. I drank it for comfort and taste. Now I get it. Coffee is an essential survival beverage. The gods are laughing. We’re just trying to stay conscious.

read Kerri’s thoughts about COFFEE!

Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: cartoon, coffee, comic, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, growing older, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, middle age, nectar of the gods, relationship, saturday morning smack-dab, second chances, sleepless nights, smack-dab, survival beverage | Leave a comment »

See The Good [on KS Friday]

Posted on June 25, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“…the measure on ones mental health is the ability to see the good in everything. Perception is the key.” ~ Kristine Klussman, Connection

If I kept a gratitude journal, my entry yesterday would be that Bruce was happy. I could hear it in his voice. Although it had been seven years since we last spoke, we talked like we were picking up a conversation from yesterday. Life has changed dramatically for both of us.

It seems we have both reached the revelation of simple appreciation. No longer focused on the big stuff, we talked of the sweet moments, the moments that feed our souls. He asked me to describe my days and I was happily taken aback to tell the tale of walks on trails, beginning each day writing posts with Kerri, ending each day with a glass of wine. Drawing cartoons. A dog that runs enthusiastic circles. Good friends.

I am reminded again and again that goodness is not found in the world. It is brought to the world. We don’t perceive what is already “there,” we wrap what is “there” in a story-blanket. We give it meaning. And then we feel the impact of the meaning we give it. Viktor Frankel famously wrote that “Happiness ensues.” It follows. Despair ensues, too. Anger, too, if that is what is brought.

Earlier this year a friend asked how Kerri and I were doing amidst the job losses and broken wrists. I responded that our circumstance was dire. It was. It just didn’t feel that way, so full was our sense of appreciation. In the midst of a dire circumstance, we started our days writing. Good friends called. DogDog ran enthusiastic circles and made us laugh. We sipped a glass of wine at the end of each day and enjoyed our simple meals. Today, things are less dire and, although we are still standing on shaky ground, we start each day writing together. We hold hands and take walks. We breathe deeply the smell of coffee in the morning. Our gratitude for our days has not changed a bit. Good moments are everywhere.

And today, Bruce is back in touch. He is happy and his happiness, like all happiness, comes from a hard decision that took tremendous courage: he decided to see the good. To bring light. To be light. He is doing the work of savoring the good moments that he now sees all around himself.