Costco. Waiting for the next batch of rotisserie chickens. People gather. Like racers at the starting line, chicken-shoppers jokey their carts for prime position. We call it “The Chicken Line”.
While we are in the Chicken Line, I people-watch. I look at faces, changing like the moon as they review their shopping list or life-choices.
Kerri talks to people. She makes friends. She makes people laugh. It’s not unusual, as we depart the Chicken Line with our newly acquired hot bird, for her to wave and call out, “Nice talking with you!”
“See you next time in The Chicken Line,” the stranger (to me) replies and giggles.
Kerri’s photos serve as our writing prompts. Sometimes I know exactly what I want to write about. I lead. Sometimes, like today, I stare and follow the first thought that comes to mind, whether or not it makes sense. I let the thought lead me.
Sometimes I follow. Sometimes I lead. Inevitably, during the writing, the process flips. The follower takes charge and leads. The leader gives over and listens. It’s a nice description of a creative process, a tennis match between the intuitive and intentional.
Today’s first thought? It’s perfect design. A still shot masks the truth that this flower is designed for motion. Time-lapse photography reveals the pulse of life, opening and closing. Petals and sepals, pistils and stamen, folding and unfolding with the delicate movement of the planet spinning around the sun. And those tiny hairs on the stem and sepal? Trichome – absorbing life, protecting the dance.
It occurs to me that the word “design” implies a designer and there we go again bumbling into the morass of the godhead. How to explain such perfection? This miracle of life, utter interdependence, as seen in a purple coneflower.
Perhaps it’s enough to acknowledge that my mind is way too limited to grasp the enormity of the concert. I dabble in the power of imagination but will never grasp the infinite, contain the uncontainable, neither in word or way.
Perhaps my desire to affix a definition to the undefinable, to understand the boundless, is no different than staring at a writing prompt. Sometimes I know exactly what I want to write. Sometimes I have no idea. Sometimes I lead. Sometimes I follow. Intuition dances with intention yet neither are capable of explaining the boundless, of measuring the immeasurable, describing the indescribable.
It is enough to perform my part and fully appreciate the caper.
I love our smack-dab cartoon. In a cartoon, dogs can talk, people can transmogrify, we can laugh at the worst of ourselves and reveal the best of ourselves. In other words, anything is possible. I think that’s why cartooning has long been an aspect of Kerri and my relationship. Anything is possible.
Our first cartoon idea popped up when we were punchy on a roadtrip. We asked a “what if” question. What if we’d met earlier in life and had children. What would we have named our little pot roast? Miles of hilarity ensued because we landed on Chicken Marsala. Our boy Chicken was born and for the rest of the trip, the voice of our imaginary child chimed in with commentary about his parents. We submitted five rounds of Chicken Marsala cartoons to the syndicates. Chicken strips and single panel Chicken nuggets (clever, no?). The imaginary child of two artists who met late in life. What a great premise! Especially since the two artists were hot messes and the child was grounded, capable of scaring them into sensibility and taunting them into play. Idealists, all.
It used to be that when I asked a “what if” question I zoomed into the outer reaches of inner space. That’s still true though now I have a second, equally powerful path to imagination. Look close-in at the miracle shapes of plants. Look close-in at the worlds at play all around us. I give full credit to Kerri’s compulsion to photograph minutiae. “Lookit!” she proclaims and shows me a miracle image. I’ve picked up the pattern. I rarely photograph what I see but I am just as apt to look close-in as I am to fly into the Netherworld. I am on a daily basis gobsmacked by color or texture or shape or sound or smell or taste of this amazing world. Look at the lavender! Just look! No, really. Slow down and look.
This morning I read a definition of imagination: thinking that is not bound by real world constraints. I wanted to add this: senses that are capable of experiencing real world detail.
It’s a great polarity, the spectrum of potential between “anything is possible” and “I never could have imagined it.” Chicken tried to tell us to look both ways but, you know, it’s harder than you think to listen to your imaginary child, especially when they understand more about life than you ever will.
A lonely cloudy day. I wandered through a farmer’s market. The sun-baked-old-man behind the table looked up, waved me over, cut a slice of peach and said, “You have to try this.” I accepted his offer. I couldn’t believe how delicious it tasted. Seeing the taste-revelation in my eyes, he told me a thing or two about peaches. I bought a few and continued on my way, no longer feeling alone.
The other day, after yet-another-day of fruitless job searching (good pun, yes?), Kerri cut a peach and we stood at the counter, savoring. I was tossed back in time to that lonely day, the sun-baked-farmer, the taste revelation. I can’t recall a thing he told me about peaches but I vividly remember the taste. I remember the kindness in our conversation. He wasn’t in a hurry. He had all the time in the world to share with me what he knew.
Sometimes, as I recount these experiences, I wonder if they happened the way I remember them or am I determined to give them a positive spin? Was that old farmer as kind as I paint him? Did he see a lonely man passing his booth and cut a peach to lift his spirits? Or, was he a really good salesman? Or both/and? I want to believe in his generous spirit. I felt it. So I will hold on to my interpretation. He knew about peaches. He knew about loneliness. He knew one thing might help the other.
A second hand lesson from way back: Find the artists. Ask them to tell you about what they know. People like to share their stories, their knowledge, their foibles, their wisdom. And, most importantly, assume everyone is an artist.
When I was learning to be on a stage there was a phrase I particularly appreciated: fill the space. There was also a companion question that seemed to be more important: what are you bringing to the space?
The assumption beneath both the phrase and the question is that you have a profound impact on your world. Not in abstraction. You are an active participant in creating it. After all, the space is shared, co-created. What do you intend to bring to the shared space? Are you going to “take” energy from the shared space (it’s all about me) or are you going to “bring” energy to the shared space (we are in this together). I understand this choice to be the direction of intention. It’s the origin story behind the name of this blog. A performers job is to bring good energy and light to the shared space, to unify it. To grow the goodness.
I think that’s why Kerri and I are attracted to prayer flags. The mantras on the flags are blown by the wind to fill all the space of the world with good will and compassion. Fill the space with goodness to the benefit of all. A straightforward yet profound intention.
It seems like such a simple thing, doesn’t it? Intend to bring good energy to the space that is shared by all. And, to us, it seems like the number one imperative of our times. In this me-me-me era, rife with “taking” energy from the space, it’s crucial to help reverse the tide.
She was holding black and white bandanas and I saw the thought hit her. She turned and asked, “Do you think it’s a good idea to make our own prayer flags?”
“Absolutely.” I said. “Why not? This world could use all the good intention that we can muster.”
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.
In the department of home repair I am mostly known for making things worse. I YouTube solutions and follow procedures. Occasionally I bumble into a triumphant fix but mostly I utter the words, “I think I broke it.”
Kerri, on the other hand, has the savvy. She springs into fix-it mode. And, she knows when NOT to spring into fix-it mode. She knows the line not to cross.
I lack the line so I rely on her to tell me when to stop, when to walk away. Since this particular cartoon happened yesterday, I’ll leave you with a bonus question: Before walking away, did I or did I not crack the sink? Hhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmnnnnn?
Like most people I have had some dark nights of the soul. Fortunately, I also have a life rich in beacons, special people that shine bright and light the way in my darkest hours. Best-of-all, my beacons are visible on sunny days, too. Some of my beacons have been around for the long haul. Some show up in a moment and disappear as fast as they appeared.
It’s hard not to believe in guidance when surrounded by so many living lighthouses.
Once, on a snowy day in a local store called PeaceTree, the man behind the counter told Kerri that she was surrounded by good angels. It was a comfort and gave her courage to head out into the storm.
Yesterday, Jonathan’s passing had us talking about good angels. He was certainly an angel for us. It made me realize (again-and-again) that the good angels that surround us are not ethereal unseen spirits. They are visible. Humans. Folk. Peeps. 20. Brad and Jen. The Up-North-Gang. Horatio. They are the friends that show up to help, Arnie and Dwight. The people that call out-of-the-blue to check-in. They are the world’s best mechanic that fixes our car and then delivers it to our driveway. The notes from Judy or Jim. The texts of encouragement from Rob or Mike or David. The “likes” from Alex and Buffalo Bob that revitalize us everyday to keep writing, keep creating. Brenda and Cris reaching out to us when they hear one of Kerri”s compositions streaming and share how much her music means to them. The bright lights that we just know are out there. Guy and Charles.
We are, indeed, surrounded by good angels, more than I can name or count. We would not be here were it not for the people who catch us when we were falling, the voices of encouragement that cheer when we consider stopping, the many, many people who stand with us in the storm and whisper, “How can I help?”
Beacons. Warming fires on the hill. They are all around us – all the time – and we are more than grateful for their bright light, infusing us with courage as we sail into the next unknown.
More than a few times, we’ve stood at the display of wind chimes in a store. We sound them. We compare the tones. We close our eyes and feel the vibration. Some we like immediately. Others we shrug, not-so-much. We give them a second try, ringing a few together to make mixed tones. We never buy the chimes but we always try them on for size. It’s a form of dreaming. We leave the display with the magic phrase, “Someday.” Yes, someday we’ll have to get those.
Someday. What a double-edged sword is this word!
A few years ago, when Kerri’s digestive system went awry, we dedicated ourselves to the Whole 30 diet so she might regain balance. There’s no sugar allowed in the Whole 30. We learned a valuable strategy for coping with the intense I-must-have-that desire. Walk past the plate of brownies and count to 5. In five seconds, without fail, the desire dissipated. We learned that what-we-must-have is a healthy system. The road to “someday” meant not biting the illusion of sugar-fulfillment.
Delayed gratification. Accelerated health.
Today we learned of Jonathan’s passing. The news floated by on the Facebook stream. We were stunned. In addition to being a very bright light in the world, a peer, he was one of the hardest working people I’ve ever known. He was stockpiling money for his retirement. He had vision. He had plans. “Someday,” he’d say, a twinkle-of-delight in his eye. We lost touch during the pandemic. This morning Kerri said, “I always thought we see him again. Someday…”
I’m given to looking up the words I’m batting around. The antonyms of “someday” are “immediately” and “never.” Two choices, polar opposites, both unforgiving.
Today we will celebrate the life of a friend. We’ll lift a glass in his honor. We’ll share a brownie bite. We might just go to the store and sound the chimes. And, who knows, maybe today will be someday. “Why wait?” I’ll ask.
On my list of things to think about: raindrops are water held together by surface tension. The elements of air and water at play. And then, as if that were not enough, there’s refraction!
Now you know why I’m such a bore at parties. While everyone else discusses recipes or the antics of their children, I’m captured by the drip of water on the houseplant. Talk to me at your own risk.
It’s a question of attractions. Water molecules like hanging out with other water molecules more than they like hanging out with air molecules. Like seeks like. The liquid contracts. An inward force of attraction creates a surface tension at the crossroads with air. Don’t worry. Beyond the metaphor I don’t really understand it, either.
In my next life I’m going to be either a gospel singer or a physicist. If a physicist, I’ll still be an outrageous bore at parties but at least I’ll understand the forces behind what I’m seeing. If a gospel singer, I’ll be great fun at parties and I won’t for a moment think of the forces at play. I’ll sing with the power of unquestioned faith.
Our backyard is a sanctuary. The birds love it. The chipmunks race along the fence line. The bunnies eat the grass and lead Dogga on wild-bunny-chases. The pond gurgles. The plants thrive. All are interfaces of forces. Water and air. Life playing with life.
It gives me plenty of fodder to think about. And, plenty to love.
The Direction of Intention 