pond | The Direction of Intention

Tender Of The Garden [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 15, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

A week ago they were nowhere to be found. This week the peonies are poppin’! Kerri is the guardian of the peonies, the tender-of-the-garden.

My job is to clean out and prepare the beds for new growth. I love it. It is a possible analogy for what my work in the world has always been. Working with student actors or business-folk sometimes felt like clearing the thought-debris that choked their belief. Once the debris was cleared there was no stopping them. Nothing but potential. Peonies-a-poppin’! I loved it.

I usually wait until May to clean out and reset the pond but last week I had an overwhelming desire to DO IT NOW. It was the single warm day in a week of miserable weather. Before I knew it I’d pumped out the old water, removed the leaves and sticks, scrubbed and checked the liner, completely cleaned and restored the filters and the pump, and was refilling the pond with clear water. The fountain gurgled to life. It sounds like a bubbling brook. It is a sound that soothes us.

“So, today’s the day,” she said.

“Today’s the day.” She spied me eyeing the grasses and flower beds. She knows me. Once an impulse takes over I can be, well, obsessive.

“Too soon.” She said. “It’s too soon.” She pulled chairs into the sun so we might sit and watch the pond refill. She knows that if she can get me to sit in the sun and break the momentum then the impulse will abate. My obsession makes her nervous so she’s become expert at tempering my mania.

It occurs to me that she is clearing my heart and mind of debris. It is true, I am easier in the world. She is, after all, the guardian of the peonies, the tender of the garden.

read Kerri’s blogpost about PEONIES

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, garden, guardian, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, obsession, peony, pond, potential, story, studio melange, the melange, thought debris | 1 Comment »

Tend The Pond [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on October 31, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

She called it The Big Dig. She always wanted a pond in her back yard so she threw a party, invited friends to bring shovels, and the pond was born. I flew in for The Big Dig since we’d only just met. Early in the day we went to a local landscaper and collected a trailer load of stone. Ted ran power from the garage to the dig site.

A mass of people arrived with shovels. Mudslides were served. People laughed. And, in less than 15 minutes the hole was dug, the liner installed, the pump secured, the stones placed and the hose was busy with the inaugural filling. We cheered when the pump was plugged in and the fountain began to bubble.

The Big Dig was a ceremonial so-long to the past and a hearty welcome to the future. It was the next day, sitting in the sun, that Kerri let the “m” word slip (marriage); she blushed and back-peddled so hard I fell out of my chair laughing. When I could breathe again I confessed that, at that very moment, I too, was thinking about the “m” word. It was the day after the Big Dig that I understood I was about to uproot my life from Seattle and move east.

Each spring when I clean the pond, repair it, and ready it for the summer, I revisit the ceremony. In fact, caring for the pond has become for me a ceremonial revisit to that line between past and future.

Each fall, when the pond begins to ice-over and I am forced to pull the pump, filters and fountain, tucking it in for the winter, I have a rush of quiet thanksgiving. A new life. A second chance.

A decade of seasons has rolled by since The Big Dig. There have been plenty of changes since that day. Dogga arrived and ran deep velodrome paths around the pond, forcing us to lay stone to prevent him from carving a full moat with his racing circles. We put up a fence. We’ve planted grasses. Breck-the-aspen tree found a forever spot and is entering her teenage years. The Covid epoch made us focus on our backyard. We made it our sanctuary.

And, at the heart of our peaceful place, a monument to the beginning of our story, a reminder of our good fortune, a refuge for the birds and chippies that we adore watching, bubbles the pond. Every day. A simple source of nourishment for our souls.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE POND

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Filed under: Gratitude, Love, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, ceremonial, ceremony, change, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, friendship, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, monument, new beginnings, nourishment, pond, revisit, sanctuary, soul, stewardship, story, studio melange, symbol, The Big Dig, the melange | 2 Comments »

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.”