Posted on October 12, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
I wrote to Horatio that COVID comes as advertised. It is no joke.
The prescription is to rest and get plenty of sleep. The resting part is easy since there is no energy for anything else. Walking is a chore. Sitting is a chore. Thinking is out of the question. What remains is called rest.
The sleeping part, on the other hand, is nigh-on-impossible. We both brought it home from our travels so our dueling coughs, hacks, and wheezes make sleep an impossibility. Moving to the couch to be alone with my hack-n-wheeze was a losing strategy. It’s hard to sleep when every atom aches. I didn’t know that atoms could ache. I have atoms I never knew I had.
The lemonade from so many lemons? In my pursuit of new experiences I can now say I have a visceral understanding of COVID. Perhaps in the future I should be more discerning about what I am and am not willing to learn. A consideration for later. Right now, thinking – and sleeping – are out of the question.
Posted on October 5, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
We’ve been on the road. It daily reminds me to make a list of all the things I take for granted, the too-many-things-to count gratitudes that I miss each day.
Posted on September 28, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
It’s taken me some time to learn but I now know exactly what to do. Stay. Out. Of. The. Way.
The length of the trip does not matter. My man-brain defaults to simplicity and allows me to pack in a few minutes with minimal thought and no stress. That is not true for Kerri. For her, packing takes weeks. Weeks. She suffers. She angsts. She frets. She loses sleep. In fact, it is common for us to complete the trip, be home unpacking – and she will continue to roll doubt through her choices. “Oh, I should have taken…”
The worst thing I can do is try to help. The second worst thing I can do is to finish packing before she zips her bag. So, while she climbs this mountain, fords this river, bears this burden…I will remain unhelpful, purposefully scarce, eerily quiet and strategically unpacked, yet I will live to travel another day.
Posted on September 7, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
Humans 300 years from now will look on our times as the nadir of human expression. They will marvel at our creation of something so ingenious as social media and then wrinkle their noses at how we used it.
“Predictable,” they will sigh. “If anyone can say anything in a medium driven and magnified solely by popularity – then it should have come as no surprise that some people will-in-fact say anything to hoard popularity.” Likes. “They must not have known that people will do anything for attention,” they will roll their eyes.
“Our ancestors enjoyed free speech,” they will scribble in their notes, “but were a people with no sense of decorum.” Their discovery will spur a new field of research: when in human development did people evolve enough to place decency above their need for approval? When did people evolve enough to consider the impact of their words, to understand that that their actions affect the greater good?
Posted on August 31, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
I worked in or consulted with many schools and businesses. I was always amazed at how much the organization mirrored the personality of the principal or CEO. An angry boss always made for an angry organization. A bright light at the top of the org chart shone in every corner and heart of the community.
And so it goes for nations. This week I had two important calls with dear friends that I have not seen for over a decade. Both commented on the lightness of spirit they feel since Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for President. Hope is in the air. A leader who laughs. A candidate who speaks of opportunity, equality and possibility…The energy of optimism is palpable, the uplift is trickling down. You can feel it.
Posted on August 24, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
For a little perspective: the body of her computer is a 2008. The brains are from 2012. That she has been able to keep it going for so long – and produced so much with it – is nothing short of a miracle. It is a horse-and-buggy in a freeway world.
Kerri is a child of the depression – a deep imprint left in her psyche by her parents – so she refuses to “buy new” until the old falls apart. As much as I have tried to explain that technology is not like clothes or appliances, they age differently, she maintains her stalwart determination to ride her computer until it fails. And, that day has come.
Lazarus had an easier job of coming back to life than will Kerri’s computer. But stalwart determination dictates that we must at least try to pull the spirit of her computer back from the void. It is with the same determination that she has recently managed, somehow, to publish five blog posts and one cartoon a week with her equally ancient iPad (refusing to touch my computer).
Stubborn determination. Brilliant work-arounds. Tech-death-denial, infrastructure collapse…is no obstacle. A husband who’s in awe of her perseverance, her unwavering belief in squeezing out the last drop of possibility, yet learned to hold his tongue, nod his head and support her dedication to try-try-again. That, dear ones, is what makes us classics.
Posted on August 17, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
Until today, I’ve never been compared to a good english muffin. For that matter, I’ve never been compared to a bad english muffin. In the end, whether a good english muffin or bad, I am a festival of nooks and crannies and plan on celebrating each new addition. When you’re falling, dive!
You may have noticed an appearance change in this addition of smack-dab. Unlike me, it’s not new nooks and crannies. We are having technical difficulties at Smack-Dab International. Namely, Kerri’s computer died mid-Smack and took this week’s cartoon with it. While I was readying a post of apology for our smack-dab-hiatus, she produced this strip in record time on her ancient iPad mini! Moral of the story: while I look more and more like breakfast food, she is rapidly becoming the queen of the work-around. She never ceases to amaze me.
This is what I am learning. It doesn’t happen all at once. It’s a slow erosion on the outside while the inside maintains a healthy denial. “One weird thing after another,” IS the process of aging. It’s not really weird; it’s a direct challenge to the delusion that IT happens to other people…not us. Not me!
“Things don’t work like they used to…” I say to myself, after trying to race across the street “like I used to”. That other part of myself, the sassy part that is always right, responds, “They’re not supposed to work like they used to. Be grateful that they work at all!” Sassy, realistic, but with little or no bedside manner. I can’t wait for THAT part of me to hit the surface. People will think I’ve grown cranky but I will know that my aging body facilitated a weakening social editor. My new-old motto: If your body is going to hurt non-stop then you might as well give the world a piece of your mind! If, then.
Of course, I can only give the world a piece of my mind because, in keeping with the theme, a piece of my mind is all that I have remaining. DAD-GUMMIT! Now, where did I put my sweater?
Jes’ kidding. I’m as healthy as a horse! Out to pasture. Nibbling on grass. Lolling in the meadow grasses…(see? Denial, denial, denial)
The Direction of Intention 