Practice Letting Go [on KS Friday]

Posted on May 19, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it.” ~ Rainier Maria Rilke

Kathy Bates has a great line in the movie P.S. I Love You: “The thing to remember is…if we’re all alone, then we’re all together in that, too.”

It’s our aloneness that propels us to reach. Our aloneness can drive us to grab. To hold on with all of our might.

Mothers learn the lesson of letting go. Fathers, too. Children would suffocate otherwise. In time, children must also learn the lesson of letting go of their parents. It’s not an easy lesson. It’s counterintuitive.

Couples learn this lesson if they are lucky. They recognize the line between reaching and clutching. Growth is always a process of opening. Open hands. Open minds. Open hearts. Growing a relationship never comes from controlling it. And, don’t we all know the feeling when a hug lasts a bit too long?

And then there are memories. Slippery devils, they tend to fade. Even in this era of ubiquitous photos, the feel, taste, touch, sound, sight flattens and dims. Three dimensions becomes two. I grab at the memory. My hands close around air. Ephemeral-something.

Tonight I will look into the night sky and make my peace. Alone together. Together alone. I will sit on the porch, grateful beyond words to reach and hold Kerri’s hand. Together in this, too.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about BARNEY-TWO-NAILS

the box/blueprint for my soul © 1997 kerri sherwood

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Write Together [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 15, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Dogga is sleeping at the foot of the bed. As he ages, he’s starting to snore and it makes me chuckle. His paws wiggle. He’s running circles in his dreams.

While he runs, we sit on the bed, feet under the blankets, doing what we do together each morning. We are writing blogposts. It’s among our favorite things to do. We structure our days around our time to write.

Twelve years ago, staring at the keyboard and flickering white screen, I pondered the utter madness of writing my first blogpost. I did not identify as a writer. I was convinced that I had nothing to say. Why, then, was I staring at this blank screen, my fingers hovering just above the keys?

The romantic in me tells the story that I knew, someday in my distant future, I’d begin every-single-day sitting next to my wife, writing. Staring at that long-ago blank screen, somewhere deep down, I knew that I needed to learn to write, I needed to learn to give voice, not because I had anything worthwhile to say, but because I had something sacred I needed to learn to do. Our writing time is, after all, sacred time.

I’ve only recently come to realize that the great body of work I will leave on this earth is not, as I once hoped, my paintings. It will be these posts. What started as my musings has become our musings. We’ve calculated that, all together, to date, we’ve written the equivalent of ten decent sized books.

On the wall to my right is a small frame within a large frame. Within the small frame is a StoryPeople print. A couple embraces and the message reads: Someday, the light will shine like the sun through my skin & they will say, “What have you done with your life?” And though there are many moments I think I will remember, in the end, I will be proud to say, I was one of us.”

That’s it. The proof in my stars. None of the plays or paintings, none of the certificates on my inner wall of respect, matter a whit. Each day, in this life, I was given the gift – or gave myself the gift -of a blank screen, fingers that hover, and a step into uncertainty so that, one day, my future self might say, I am proud to be one of us.

read Kerri’s blogpost about EVERY MORNING

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Do The Important Thing [on saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on November 5, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

These are the short days of the year. The moment I’m finished with work, we head out the door for a walk before the sun disappears. Sometimes, like this week, when the weather is gorgeous, we walk the neighborhood during my lunch break. We are walk-opportunitsts.

It’s easy on the weekends to fill up the days with the-things-that-need-to-get-done. The gutters need cleaning. The leaves need raking. Winter is coming. Generally, we build the list around a walk but occasionally there is an inversion. The walk goes on the list.

I know we have our priorities straight. Even on the days of inversion, even if the list is lengthy and incomplete, we recognize that the most important thing is not the door that needs fixing or the deck that needs repair. The most important thing is to hold hands and take a walk. Together.

It’s how we appreciate our moment of life. The list can always wait for another day.

read Kerri’s blog post on this saturday morning smack-dab.

smack-dab. © 2022 kerrianddavid.com

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Stroll [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 14, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Yesterday, for some reason, I revisited days of early childhood. I played four-square in the driveway. I threw dirt clods at the site of new home construction. I raced my cars off the side of the abandoned building above Del and Dorothy’s house in the mountains; the cars tumbled and I ran to retrieve them so I might send them flying again and again. I ran home in a panic the day I learned that Nancy’s little sister had drowned in utility hole that was filled with water. It was on the route I walked to school and passing the hole filled me with trepidation, it was a dark portal, my first experience of death. I didn’t really understand it.

Late at night, Kerri and I sometimes talk about everything that has happened in the short time of our relationship. We’ve lost parents and lost careers, spiraled in a free fall of uncertainty, had surgeries and broken bones. We’ve also climbed mountains, watched sunrises and meteor showers, we hold hands when we walk, we write together every day. We dance in the kitchen. I am the sous chef to her cooking artistry.

I’m not sure if we practice paying attention to our moments or it’s something that has come naturally to us. She is rarely without her camera, noticing the smallest flower, capturing the angry sky. I hold the space and hope someday she stops apologizing for stopping again to take a photo; I love watching her discover the shapes and colors of this world. Besides, I get to see what she captures in her lens with an excited, ‘Lookit!”

Today the plumber comes. Yesterday we appealed to the company that destroyed our yard replacing the waterline to come back and strip off the top layer of soil, now filled with hardware and concrete and asphalt. Slowly, we are digging out, repairing and replacing all that was destroyed or delayed in our free fall. Our lessons seem to be about stress – or, rather – not stressing. We are having experiences, rich and varied. Some things we can control. Most, we cannot. The best we can do is hold hands and stand together in each experience. Appreciate them no matter whether they look like tragedy or comedy. We’ll make meaning of them later down the road.

The artist dances with death. The appreciation of the fragility of life. Each day I walk by that metaphoric utility hole, only now it does not fill me with trepidation. It makes me squeeze her hand and fills me with gratitude for this life, this moment, this shadow we cast together as we take our time strolling through the garden.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SHADOW

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Do It Together [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 7, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Our house is beginning to breathe. As each bag or box leaves, as another load goes to Goodwill, space opens. Air moves. Stuck spaces relax. New possibilities circle our imagination. And, as the house takes a deep inhale and long slow exhale, so do we.

This is a task she must do on her own. In the past I tried to make it happen and only created more turmoil. I am a relative newcomer to this house so my memories do not run as deep. What looks like junk to me might carry a sacred family story.

That is the continual lesson of my life. My eyes can never see the full extent of your story. Your eyes can never see the complexity of my story. The creation of “our” story requires constant tending. It’s always best to ask a question. “Our” story becomes vital, rich, and inspiring the moment I cease trying to get you to see my way. There’s a space between – called “relationship”- that we can both see because, together, we create it. Together, we speak to it.

Those few simple lessons apply to all relationships, even the most casual.

And so, while I’m working upstairs, she is downstairs unpacking boxes and bins. Sometimes I hear her sigh. Sometimes there is laughter and I know a good story will come my way. Each day, before I climb the stairs, I ask, “Is there anything I can do to help?” Her reply is always the same. “I don’t know but, if there is, I’ll let you know.”

read Kerri’s blog post about CLEANING OUT

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Arrive At The Essence [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on February 15, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

This past Saturday we passed a milestone. We began writing our Melange on February 12, 2018, four years ago. We’ve published 5 days a week, every week, no matter what chaos or crazy storm blew through our lives.

Our Melange has moved through many phases. Originally, we wanted to regain some control over the publication of our music, paintings, plays, children’s books and cartoons. In our first post I called it our “pile of creative perseverance.” Also, we wanted to make a living from our mountain of work so we set up Society6 storefronts and spent hours each day developing products based on what we published. It was a blast and a total bust.

Eventually, the stores fell off, the daily themes changed, and we arrived at a pure essence: we love to sit together and write. Each day. There’s always a visual prompt, mostly from photos Kerri’s taken during the week. There’s only one rule: we can’t read or know what the other is writing about until we’ve completed our drafts. And then we read to each other, talk about our posts and clean them up. It’s my favorite thing to do. It feeds our hearts, energizes our artistic souls and that is more than enough.

Somedays I feel as if we are writing ourselves into existence. Our Melange is the story we tell each other – and you – of our life together. It’s a continuation of the Roadtrip, the daily emails we wrote to each other before we met. And, if the Roadtrip was a narrative offering of “this is me,” the Melange is a narrative offering of, “this is us.”

We launched the Melange with this Chicken Nugget (below). I wrote, as an introduction in the inaugural post, that this Nugget – and the Melange – was “a quiet reminder that the universe of feelings was – and is – so much bigger than words can possibly contain.” Ironic, yes? Coming from two people who, each and every day, write words as their way of reaching into this vast universe of feelings.

Thank you for reading what we write. We appreciate every step you take with us on our journey.

read Kerri’s blog post about 4 YEARS

chicken marsala © 2016 kerri sherwood & david robinson

the melange © 2018-22 kerri sherwood & david robinson

Filed under: Art, Chicken Marsala Monday, Creativity, Gratitude, Love, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Decide To See [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on September 6, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

My thoughts while watching the wedding:

Oprah asked Gary Zukav this question: Where is soul? His response: Where is it not?

Exchange the word ‘love’ for the word ‘soul.’ Where is love? Where is it not?

In the English language, words like ‘love’ and ‘soul’ are nouns. Things. And, things must have limits. It is a remarkable misunderstanding, a miracle of minimization. Love, the single hardest ‘thing’ to define, in fact, impossible to define, is undefinable because it is without limit. The best we can do is point toward love-made-visible. A newborn in the arms of its mother. The moment the couple, standing before their community, stares into each other’s eyes and promises, “I do.” Watching a sunrise on an anniversary. A mother dancing with her son, the groom.

Love is. Where is it not? That means, of course, that it is “in” everything, everywhere. The air we breathe. The thoughts we think. The actions we take, big and small. It is in how we treat our neighbors. In how we see ourselves. In how we report our news. In how we tell our lies and our truths. Love is.

It is the province of no-single-religion. In fact, it is where every religion on earth goes off the rails. To claim to be “the way” or “the one true…” is to attempt dominion over love. To place rules and boundaries on the boundless.

The question Oprah didn’t ask: if it is everywhere, in everything, in war and in peace, hate and acceptance, does it have any meaning at all? If it is ubiquitous, unchangeable and indescribable, why bother? Gary’s answer, I imagine, would be something like this: we choose the form we give to our love, do we not? We can choose to put the accent on unity. We can choose to put the accent on separation. Love is. We can choose to put the accent on division or we can choose to offer our support.

There is never more or less love. Isn’t that the point? Love is beyond definition. What changes is not the love or the amount of love. What changes is what we decide to see. What changes is how we decide to see, especially how we decide to see ourselves in this world with so many “others.”

read Kerri’s blog post about JUST LOVE

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Consider The Revelation Necessary [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 23, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

An exercise that is designed for generic failure is also designed for specific success. And, so it is with the bridge. The instruction is simple: get everyone safely across the space. If anyone touches the floor, all must go back. Invariably, the first attempt is an abject failure. The group ignores the word “everyone” and, instead, opts to try and get themselves safely across the space. They believe the game is about them, that “winning” is a singular affair.

After being sent back to the beginning more than once, they come to a spectacular yet inevitable innovation: if they work together, crossing the space will be easy. It is only a matter of moments after their revelation that they, together, construct a secure bridge and are all safely standing on the other side of the room. Specific success wrought from generic failure. And, once they have their realization, they cling to it. They own it. They must, the stakes are raised, the rules are tipped against them during the ensuing phases of the exercise.

I’ve led this exercise hundreds of times. Every single time the group has the necessary revelation. They are not in the game alone. They can only “win” if they join together. If they build it together, everyone will safely cross the space. It gives me hope.

Last night, during the town hall, President Biden said something that ought to slap us from our divisive stupor. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin believe the 21st century belongs to the autocrats. The pace of change is moving too fast and democracies, in their divisiveness, move too slow. So far, we are proving them right.

Once, as an experiment, rather than set the challenge of the bridge, I forced the answer. The group did as I said but collapsed in the ensuing rounds. When I raised the stakes, the people gave up. The harder it got, the less they tried. They coalesced in apathy. They never made it across the bridge again, even though they knew how to build it.

This is what the autocrats do not understand. There is no ownership, no game, in a forced answer [educators could pay attention to this simple rule, too].

We are being divided through titanic campaigns of misinformation. And so, no one will make it safely across this time-space. Generic failure. Wade Davis wrote that we now live in a failed state and, so far, we are proving him right. But I have hope. The necessary revelation, the specific success, bubbles in the frustration. Those stoking the division, feeding fear, will have their day but, in the long run, the lie collapses, people join together and, like a prayer flag, build a bridge to ensure that all make it safely across. They recognize that they are not in this game alone. Winning is hollow if half the team is lost in the process.

This game, the bridge. The necessary revelation is in our nature; nature’s prayer flag. It gives me hope.

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

read Kerri’s blog post about NATURE’S PRAYER FLAG

hope/this season ©️ 1998 kerri sherwood

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Give Yourself Time Together [on KS Friday]

Posted on January 15, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

In the pre-COVID world we had dinner with 20 twice a week. We’d cook on Sunday night. He’d cook on Thursday night. It was the rhythm of our week, how we’d locate ourselves in time. Nothing special, nothing fancy, just good food and laughter…and time together.

In the pre-COVID world, one of our favorite treats was potluck with Brad and Jen. We are a foursome with severe dietary restrictions so we found it was easier to have potluck rather than try and cook for each other. Our potlucks were time warps; we’d start talking and, in a moment, 5 hours would have passed. Our ritual question in the car driving home: “Where did the time go?” Time together with Brad and Jen has the lovely quality of never being enough time.

In October we drove to Colorado. My dad is slipping deeper and deeper into the land of dementia. In a pre-COVID world it would have been an easy decision but we delayed our trip for months. Fearing I may not see him if we did not go, we planned the safest trip possible and hit the road. He did not know me during the few days that we sat with him but there is no more precious gift I have ever given myself than those few days of time together.

If I have learned anything during this pandemic, it is that there is nothing better in this life than time together. A platitude. Maybe. But, if I could do anything right now, if I knew my time on this earth was short, I would hang out with Horatio, or MM, or Master Miller, all of the Chases…[you all know who you are]. Dinner with 20. Potluck with Brad and Jen. Every-single-moment precious. The chatter. The laughter. The quiet sitting. It is why, even in the severity of our circumstance, I consider myself, I consider Kerri and me, rich beyond measure.

This is no small revelation/admission for a dedicated introvert.

On the other side of this pandemic, it is how we will treat ourselves. Something commonplace and simple. Time together.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes

read Kerri’s blog post about TIME TOGETHER

The cool tag in our image is from in the land of elsewhere. Find and support them on etsy and instagram

time together/this part of the journey ©️ 1997/2000 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Family, Gratitude, KS Friday, Love | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Simplify [on Flawed Wednsday]

Posted on November 4, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

Well, here we are. Counting all the votes. It is our practice, our right and our tradition. While we await a final tally, one thing remains abundantly clear: we couldn’t be more deeply divided. Maybe.

In the months following the 2016 election, Ken Wilber published a small book positing that our division was an evolutionary course correction. We’ve swerved too far into the fields of relative truth – so far, in fact, that there are only personal truths which means that there is no centrally-held value set or moral framework. Thus, we are awash in nihilism and narcissism.

This morning that seems undeniable. The road to integration must pass through a pull in the opposite direction, a course correction. The return to simple truth (make america great again) is what drives the folks in red hats. The irony, of course, is that their chosen champion is one of the great liars of all time. You can’t make this stuff up. The age of relativism and the age of reason are relegating themselves onto the dusty shelf of history and evolving into…

People always recoil when the pace of change announces a new world too fast. Think of this: the Wright brothers first flew a few feet above the ground in 1903. The moon landing happened a mere 66 years later in 1969. In the span of a single lifetime, the entire notion of what it meant to be human changed. We left the planet and looked back at it.

When I was a child and humans were first stepping on the moon, television was black and white, a phone was something with a dial that had a long cord attached. Both needed to be plugged into a wall. People had to gather around “the set” to watch the news. Now, I carry my “phone” in my pocket. It has more computing power than the lunar module. More importantly, I can personalize this magic device. And, to-really-get-to-the-point, my screen is my own. My screen is my own and need not be shared. My truth is my own and need not be shared. In the space of half a lifetime, what if means to be a human community has changed.

The folks in red hats want to pretend that they can go back to simpler times, black and white television, cords on phones, a car in every garage: a world that worked for straight white men but not the rest of the nation. A world of tradition and values. And, need I point out (yes, I do) that their chosen champion is void of anything resembling a value. He assaults our traditions at every turn as he attempts to interrupt the counting of votes, discredit our election process. You can’t make this stuff up.

Simple truth. Simple times.

I’ve learned a new phrase through this election cycle: the diploma divide. The difference between the reds and the blues, as the phrase implies, is education.

Consider this: the simplest of farmers is dependent upon the latest technology. No one is out there harvesting crops with a scythe and mule team. No scientist in the lab or engineer in the factory is growing their own food. Take a stroll through some of the poorest communities in this nation and you’ll find advanced technology. My grandfather could fix his car with a screwdriver and wrench; car mechanics in 2020 fix cars with a computer.

If we can, as Ken Wilber suggests, pull our camera back into outer space and take an honest look at ourselves, we are not as divided in practice as we are in perception.

We need each other. We depend on each other. We are stepping through a transition time, wrestling for our future-identity in rapidly changing times. We can’t go back. We can’t go forward without a shared truth. We need each other now more than ever. We depend upon each other more than ever.

It is that simple.

read Kerri’s blog post about TOGETHER APART

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