memory | The Direction of Intention

Marking Time [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 8, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Marking time. I stood at the large window and looked at the crowd queueing to enter the concert hall. The evening promised a blast from the past, greying seniors reaching back to touch their youth, aging bodies dressed as they might have dressed 30 years ago – and loving it. Remembering. Posing for pictures. Then and now.

It was a birthday experience, a gift. The Queen tribute band – One Vision of Queen with Marc Martel. Close your eyes and you’d think you were present with Freddie Mercury, Brian May, John Deacon, Roger Taylor… It was hard not to be catapulted back to 1980. Where were you when you first heard Bohemian Rhapsody? I knew exactly. It was visceral. I remember thinking, “What’s this?”

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality
Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see…

As time machines go, this was a great one. All the aging bodies danced and clapped, perhaps with a little less flexibility and grace but no less enthusiasm. Marking-the-time. Gratitude rippled up and down the aisles for this music that defined, informed, enriched and transported. There and back.

I see a little silhouetto of a man
Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango?

read Kerri’s blogpost about QUEEN

comment. like. support. share. subscribe. many thanks!

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Navel Gazing | Tagged: aging, artistry, birthday present, Bohemian Rhapsody, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Freddie Mercury, Gratitude, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Marc Martel, marking time, memory, One Vision of Queen, Queen, story, studio melange, the melange, time machine, tribute band, youth | Leave a comment »

Tiny Hands. Precious Gift. [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on April 19, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

We’ve been writing our blogs together for so long (323 weeks and counting) that this post has become something of a spring ritual: the first dandelion.

Among other things, the first dandelion plucks Kerri’s parental heartstrings. Nothing throws her back in time like the first dandelion of the season. She is regularly contacted by wistful parents after they first encounter her song, Fistful of Dandelions. The power of the arts.

What those wistful parents don’t know is that her song, as well as the first dandelion, fills her cup with yearning for the days when her children freely played in the fields, rolled in the grasses, and ran to her with tiny hands clutching too many yellow dandelions.

Artists do not invent – they articulate what lives in the fields beyond language. They touch what we experience but cannot quite grasp. In her song, she reaches for what parents feel but can barely endure – what she feels but can barely endure: little legs racing across a field, tiny hands holding precious a gift: the new season’s miracle-pop of brilliant yellow. “Dandelions for Momma.”

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about DANDELIONS

like. share. subscribe. support. comment. thank you.

Filed under: Family, KS Friday, Love | Tagged: artistry, children, composer, dandelions, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, feeling, fistful of dandelions, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, melancholy, memories, memory, motherhood, parenthood, parents, rituals, singer songwriter, spring, story, studio melange, the melange, the power of art, wistful, yearning | Leave a comment »

All The Way To The Skin [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 15, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

The fortune read, “Sprinkles of joy will shower upon you in unexpected ways.” She stared at in disbelief. It was a whispered reinforcement from an old friend. A much needed affirmation of good things to come.

For me it brought a memory: she was introducing me to Lake Geneva. We were just getting to know each other. The skies opened suddenly and dumped buckets of rain on us. We laughed and laughed, ducking into a doorway for some cover. We were soaked and giddy. Showers of joy came upon us in unexpected ways. So much joy showered us that we had to put towels on the seats of the car to protect the upholstery.

Last night, walking by the cemetery, we talked about the hillside covered in headstones. “These were people with voices and dreams and desperation. Lives.” I said. “Like us. They had just so many days on earth. These stones for me are not an abstraction.” She agreed. We must not waste our precious days lost in the weeds. Railing against the weather.

When the deluge comes, it’s best to hold hands, turn into it, and laugh. Joy may sometimes come in sprinkles but for us it usually arrives in buckets that soak us all the way to the skin.

read Kerri’s blogpost about JOY

like. share. support. subscribe. comment. many thanks!

Filed under: Gratitude, Love, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: abstraction, artistry, awareness, cemetery, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, desperation, dreams, fortune cookie, Gratitude, joy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, memory, soaked, sprinkles, sprinkles of joy, story, studio melange, the melange | 2 Comments »

After All [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on March 15, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Food is the most primitive form of comfort.” ~ Sheilah Graham Westbrook

In anyone’s book, our circumstances at present are extreme. And so, we cook.

My role in the kitchen is sous chef and clean-up. Kerri is the master chef though she is generous and does not require me to address her as “Yes, Chef!” Dogga is the third member of our team. He is an enthusiastic taste-tester and also serves the role of floor clean-up. We are a good team. The simple action of cooking together is large part of our recipe for cooking-up-comfort. We love it.

The actual food that we cook is, of course, a huge part of the comfort infusion. We range from chicken soup to Kerri’s pasta sauce. Lately, we’ve been making grilled cheese sandwiches and, I’ve noticed, recipes that require mashed potatoes. Truthfully, we could probably strip everything else off the plate but the mashed potatoes are the essential. They are the epicenter of comfort. We have in the past made mashed potatoes all-by-themselves and feasted on an intentional mainline of food-cheer.

My theory of comfort food is paradoxical (and obvious). Comfort food takes you back in time. Kerri’s mom made comfort-mashed-potatoes so they are a direct connection to Beaky. Comfort food also drops you into the present moment. The delicious fulfillment of warm expectation. There’s nothing like taste and smell – a happy dance of two senses – to pull everything into the right-here-and-now. And in this moment, wrapped in a yummy warm blanket of tasty comfort, all is well. At least for now. And, in the end, it makes us realize that this bite, this moment, is all that we have. Things are not so bad after all.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about MASHED POTATOES

like. support. subscribe. comment. share.

Filed under: Gratitude, KS Friday | Tagged: artistry, Beaky, comfort, comfort food, composer, connection, cooking, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, expectation, feast, food, fulfillment, in the moment, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mashed potatoes, memory, musician, now, paradox, presence, recipes, right now, Right Now by kerri sherwood, right now on itunes, senses, Sheilah Graham Westbrook, singer songwriter, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Look Closely [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on February 20, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Look closely.

The turkeys slept in the neighbor’s tree. All night. Only two. The third turkey was last seen gobbling at the end of the street. In the dim grey light of morning, while the coffee brewed, I checked the tree. They were still there, very large birds perched on too skinny branches. How do they do that?

Look closely.

“It looks like a heart!” she said, reaching for her camera. Dogga was fast asleep, paws twitching. I wondered what he chased in his dreams. She sees hearts everywhere. Most of us, myself included, walk through life and miss the hearts. She seeks them. Or they seek her. She never fails to stop and admire the heart, capture its portrait, breathe in its affirmation. “Can you believe it!” she exclaims, as if this heart, one of thousands, is the very first she’s found.

Look closely.

The memory was visceral. I’m doing the push-hands exercise for the first time. I am a beginner and my partner in the push-hands has practiced tai-chi for years. I am struggling with such a simple exercise. All I need do is let go and feel. My mind wants to control. To achieve. To win. Saul is standing behind me and I can sense his amusement. My partner joins Saul’s delight. A grin breaks the surface of his neutrality. Both burst into laughter. I am suddenly surrounded by laughter and, although confused, I laugh, too. The entire group breaks down, howling. The laughter is infectious. Cleansing. My belly hurts from laughing.

“I think he’s ready now,” Saul says to the group, wiping tears from his eyes.

read Kerri’s blogpost about LOOKING CLOSE

like. support. share. comment.

buymeacoffee is a close-in-look, an opportunity for amazement at the ripples we send.

Filed under: Awakening, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: amusement, art, artistry, awareness, beginner, books, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, delight, food, heart, hearts, humor, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, laughter, let go, letting go, look closely, memory, pay attention, paying attention, photography, seeing, story, studio melange, tai chi, the melange, travel | 3 Comments »

Taste The Memory [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on February 17, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

It’s true. Taste can be a time machine. Champagne and burgers and fries – an odd combo to be sure – will always transport me to a specific magical evening in 2013, the night Kerri and my relationship launched into the mystical. It’s the story behind the story of why we had the Burgermeister truck cater our wedding.

After she wrote and produced this cartoon, we had a lengthy and delicious conversation about the foods that take us back. Try it. You’ll be amazed at the places you revisit. I landed in Slumgully. And Columbus’ delightful and mysteriously shaped pancakes for dinner. Extra syrup!

This week, we added a sure-fire food-memory destination: shrimp tacos with caramelized pineapple and red cabbage. Good god. I just went there and now I’m starving!

read Kerri’s blog about FOOD TIME MACHINE

like. eat. remember. comment. share. eat some more. support. eat again.

buymeacoffee is a prerequisite for eating baked ziti in a tiny bistro unless the bistro only exists in kerri’s imagination where money is not an issue.

Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: aarp, artistry, childhood, childhood memories, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, food, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, memories, memory, middle age cartoon, middle age romance, recipes, senses, shrimp tacos, slumgully, smack-dab, story, studio melange, taste, the melange, the poser of taste, the power of the senses, time machine, transport | 2 Comments »

Celebrate And Release [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on January 25, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

If this was a painting it would be titled “The View from the Kitchen Window in the Middle of the Polar Freeze.” It’s lovely and abstract yet also carries hints of an impressionist sky. One hundred years of painting history all wrapped up in a single frozen moment.

When I lived on the west coast I experienced my share of earthquakes. They were of varying intensity, some subtle shakers, another knocked my neighbor’s house off the foundation. And although they were different in character and spanned a few decades of time, one thing remained constant: in the moments that followed the quake, the best of human nature stepped forward. People immediately reached to strangers and friends – it didn’t matter – to ensure that everyone was alright. A shared experience, a shaking-to-the-core, loosened all the protective layers. The light came through the frozen facade.

As we’ve written, the polar freeze has driven us into the basement to clean out the stuff-of-life collected over three decades. It’s been a minor fascination that our cleaning process has inspired stories from friends about the time that they cleaned out the stuff-of-their-lives. Amidst the many stories we’ve heard, there is a triple constant: the stuff they saved, just like us, are the artifacts of their children with the intention of someday giving the treasures to their children. Clothes. Finger paintings. Trophies. Sporting equipment. Children’s books…our collection fills many shelves that now dip from the weight of too many books packed onto too small a shelf.

The second constant: the children do not want what the parents have saved. The museum of parenthood. The cleaning commences once the parents realize that saving the artifacts was, in fact, something they did for themselves. And so their life review is called “cleaning out.”

The third constant: the cleanse is actually a portal. A next chapter, another identity, lives on the other side of the purge. New light calls through the frozen memories. The memories warm in the telling. The sharing of the tales of parenthood, lovingly mourned and with gratitude, celebrated and released.

I Will Hold You, 29.75 x 39.25, mixed media

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE FREEZE

like. support. share. comment. thank you.

buymeacoffee is…

Filed under: DR Thursday, Emergence, Gratitude, Identity, Metaphor, Story | Tagged: artifacts, artistry, celebration, children, cleaning out, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life review, memories, memory, parenthood, passage, portal, release, stories, story, studio melange, the melange | 2 Comments »

Uncover The Story [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on January 20, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Cleaning out, for Kerri, has been like an archeological-story-dig of her life. I am a relative newcomer to the house and came with a truckload of paintings and not much else, so we are mostly excavating her life before me. Sometimes there is a gasp. Sometimes hysterical laughter. Sometimes I know she has found something important because of the profound silence. Sometimes there are tears.

Always there are stories. Treasured stories. Memories stirred by the simplest of finds, a shirt, a cassette tape, a teething ring.

I am the lucky recipient of her story-archeology and delight every time I hear her say, “Come look at this.”

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE TEETHING RING

like. share. support. comment. all are helpful. all are appreciated.

buymeacoffee is a story opportunity just waiting for you to say, “once upon a time…”

Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: aarp, archeology, artistry, cleaning house, cleaning out, composer, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life stories, lost and found, memories, memory, middle age cartoon, middle age romance, musician, painter, second chances, stories, story, story archeology, storyteller, studio melange, teething ring, the melange, two artists | 1 Comment »

Share and Renew [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on December 25, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

As additions-to-traditions go, the bauble-on-the-tree is a relatively recent inclusion. People have decorated their dwellings with pine boughs, a symbol of renewal and rebirth (of the light), for many, many centuries. Placing ornaments-on-trees only began in the 1800’s.

We decided this year – for reasons that reach beyond words – to bring out Beaky and Pa’s ornaments. We are minimalists mostly so in the decade of my Wisconsin life these ornaments have lived in a box in the basement. We look at them every year but have never – until now - hung them on a tree. They are glass and fragile so we worked slowly, placing them with care.

Having them with us this season has been more powerful than I imagined. Having them with us this morning is more meaningful than I thought possible. Family is with us. And, isn’t that, after all is said and done, the point of it all? Given family and chosen family. To feast our long line of belonging and celebrate our brief time on this earth together. To honor that we are, as Jean Houston wrote, “…the burning point of the ancestral ship.” To gather, adding to the rich bank of shared memory. We reach back in time with gratitude. We live forward through our children and their children and their children…

This morning we sit quietly, sipping our coffee, sharing stories, hanging out with Beaky and Pa, in our recognition and deep appreciation of this time of life’s Renewal.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BAUBLES

like. share. support. comment.

buymeacoffee is…

Filed under: Gratitude, Merely A Thought Monday | Tagged: ancestry, appreciation, artistry, belonging, celebration, christmas, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, family, feast, Gratitude, Honor, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, memory, Ornaments, rebirth, recognition, renewal, sharing, story, studio melange, symbol, the melange, togetherness | 1 Comment »

Get Lost [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on November 18, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

It’s true. She is sometimes hypnotized by items in a grocery store. At first I mistakenly thought she was reading every word on the labels or was frozen in some pain. Now I know better. She gets lost in reminiscence. The stuff on the shelf serves as a memory trigger.

My job is twofold: first, to protect her from oncoming carts. People with lists are notoriously poor drivers. Kneeling people, lost in a memory fit, are hard to see. Second, after an adequate amount of time, to snap her out of it. Her capacity for threading back in memory-time knows no equal so sometimes she needs a nudge to return to the present.

Oh, Yes. There’s a third job: after such a long trip her joints actually freeze and she sometimes needs help standing up.

read Kerri’s blogpost about WAX PAPER

share. like. support. comment. get lost in thought. it’s all good.