Gratitude

Yoga Mudrasana, courtesy of happylifestyletips.com

Thanksgiving is behind us, and we plow headlong into the holiday season. As I have gotten older, Thanksgiving has replaced all others as my favorite holiday. But why do we take only one day a year to pause and give thanks? (It’s one of my favorite parts of a consistent yoga practice.)

I feel grateful for a lot, but I don’t often share these things outright. Speaking gratitude should replace the selfie. 

To this end, I declare loudly: Today, I am thankful for the ability to cruise around on my bike to clear my head; messy, authentic love; feeling a bit out of my league.

Running feet, restless hands

My grandmother used to say that we had “running feet,” limbs that kept us on the move, exploring the world. Indeed, they took us from home to school, from the park to the library, pedaling bicycles, chasing each other. My beau teases that I have “restless hands,” limbs that must be working on something at all times. He’s right. A few times now, he has sat on my hands to keep them still. As an editor, I type all day long, for most days. When not clicking and clacking, I write with pen on paper. I paint. I knit. I sew. I construct. I obsessively make things. When I talk on the phone, I doodle. On dry land, I practice cupping and angling my hands for the proper swimming stroke.

Self-portrait,circa 2000

I think my restless hands have nothing to do with muscle movement or a nervous tic. I don’t drum them to pass time; I certainly don’t run to scrub the toilet to give them something to do. Rather, my hands are my most immediate tools for expression, in all the forms that I choose. Some people use their voices. Others, their bodies. Mine are, without a doubt, my hands.

I have not made something with my hands in over a week. They feel restless to create.

Simple

I'm feeling a bit out of sorts today. I have been trying to juggle too much lately, things out of my league and comfort zone. I feel unsure; I feel like a failure. These anxieties manifested themselves in my dreams last night, and I was plagued by nightmares. My beau heard my dream-state struggles and woke me gently. I heard his voice break through, "Shhh, shhhh. Babe, it's okay, it's okay."

So for today, I am returning to simplicity. A quiet house. No one to get back to. Working with my hands. Thread. A simple nutritious meal.

An avocado, an heirloom tomato from my parents' garden, whole-milk mozzarella,
whole-grain bread with flax seeds, great olive oil, salt+pepper.

Is there anything more healing than feeling protected and being nurtured? In the midst of my anxiety, I do feel gratitude.

Today

"If not for her intermittent returns to darkness—the body's insistence on life—she could have been on vacation, swimming in the sea, each stroke of her arms a complete philosophy."

-Simon van Booy-

Sealed, signed, delivered

 I spent the better part of 2012 in my studio. I painted and painted and painted, the result of which is a 21-painting series titled "Resonance." When I finished my last piece, settled in knowing I expressed all that I wanted to for this series, I just had to sit and wait. Six months to a year, for the oils to dry completely, before I could varnish the paintings and introduce them to the world.

Does this waiting period make my work anticlimactic? Perhaps. Usually, it just gives me some distance, to think about the work in another way. As the paints dry, I mull over many questions. Am I happy with the work? Does it satisfy my intentions? Do I have anything else to express? Is the series truly done?

I spent this morning varnishing the paintings. Perhaps it was the toxic fumes from the mineral varnish, but I felt excitement as I ran my brush once more over each painting. I got reacquainted with each brushstroke, each seemingly random but very intentional pencil mark, each little mound of built-up texture. In doing so, I experienced a new kind of intimacy with the work, not unlike a last meeting with a lover.

When the varnish dries, I will handwrite the title on each painting before I sign it. As one of my quirky practices, I only sign the work when I'm ready to sell them. Somehow, writing my name on a painting signifies that they are mine, but ready to be another's.

It's been a long time since I rock-and-rolled

These weeks have flown by. I can't account for the time.

There are things one can't write, even if they are raw, stark truths.

I swam in ocean waters to clear my mind, to breathe deeply, to taste salt on my lips, to understand the scale of my being.

I got lost. I tried to understand what it would mean to others if I was lost.

Last weekend, I danced.

Night swimming

I learned to swim properly five years ago. Prior to this, every entry into a body of water more than two feet deep was accompanied by sheer terror and a pep talk. "You will not die. Relax." Snorkeling with a friend in Hawaii resulted in me clinging to a craggy, volcanic rock as waves "violently" lapped around me.



Now that I am a swimmer, I can appreciate the unique moving meditation that swimming offers. For me, much of this is due to the physics of sound under water. Everything is muffled except for the movement of air, bubbles escaping the echo chamber of my lungs and exploding. Often, when I swim laps, I close my eyes and allow my body to guide me. I think of night swimming.

Exploring Hawaii, 2012

My swimming instructors would remind us that the human body was not built for swimming. As we evolved, our bodies evolved to be land dwellers, upright walkers and runners. Thus, we needed to relearn a skill using a body unoptimized for it. This was shared to encourage us.

In our modern, evolved lives, have we also deselected for long attention spans, proclivities to silence? I might enjoy an evening ritual in which darkness reigns and quietness abounds.

Roused to capture

I usually don’t mind getting up in the mornings, and often sense the time to arise. But when my alarm chirped this morning, I was surprised by how early it felt. I thought for a second that I set the clock wrong the night before. Or that maybe an imp meddled as I was deeply dreaming in slumber. Like usual, I ran late, bolted from the house and hurry-jogged to catch my bus.

On my commute, I just sat. No reading, no games, no thoughts. I kept my eyes unfocused. I tried to just be, come into the morning. The gray sky made this easy. Stopped at a red light, I noticed a young construction worker raised in a basket lift at a construction site, the metal of his temporary prison painted orange-red. On the sidewalk, the engine of the lift was demarcated with orange traffic cones, with streams of caution tape stretched between each one. The worker donned a bright orange hoodie, not his uniform, but his fashion choice for the day. An old, abandoned brick building stood behind the new construction. On what would have been its windows, black-and-white photographs of performers were installed, a dozen or so people blown up and suspended in their art. As the lift moved the worker down to the earth, he moved between the black-and-white artists, frozen in their performances, as if greeting them or joining them in a quick duet. With the perspective I had, the worker and the artists were the same size, interacting. Bright orange life juxtaposed against flat monochromes.

These are days I wish I were a photographer, to capture these serendipitous images that do not translate in paint, cannot be adequately described in words.

Saudade

When we were kids, my sister and I would memorize our favorite quotes–from movies, from books, from television shows–and pull them out in context to whatever was being discussed. At our best, we’d have conversations in near-complete allusion. This morning in the shower, one of these sprung to mind, from Field of Dreams: “There comes a time when all the cosmic tumblers click into place and the universe opens itself up for a few seconds to show you what’s possible.”

I’ve been feeling restless. I’ve been missing my sister. Coincidentally, she sent me a text last week, a one-liner from a bad soap opera that has cracked us up for over 25 years. I’ve been thinking about sports we played as kids, in the cul-de-sac of Cabrillo Ave. I’ve been wondering what I will do this year, from fun excursions to big-picture goals.

I am reading Patti Smith’s Just Kids, her account of life with Robert Mapplethorpe. By page 20, she tells of her commitment to becoming an artist, at age 19. I can’t say I had that kind of clarity when I was that age, even though I had taken formal classes and won art scholarships. I can’t say I have that kind of clarity, even now.

"Work like a slave ... create like a god." -Brancusi, whose The Kiss is shown above.
(It reminds me of falling in love in Paris in 1998.)

But I’m working. And that’s the point, isn’t it? To work and work through, and perhaps uncover tiny glints of what's possible.

Art lessons

Painting is TOUGH. I experience so many critical moments that end in "F*CK!"—total frustration. But at those rare moments of complete flow—when the work works  and everything seems to click and move in unity—my heart sings.

It is managing these arbitrary events that makes a painter an artist. When does one push ahead? When does one stop? When does one take distance? It's curious how our minds trick us. Some days, I'll look at a painting and wonder why I stopped there. I can't see the harmony in it that once was evident to me. Similarly, I think to how I have assigned inspiration to something that was purely coincidental, or worse, mistaken or misinterpreted.

What exactly is inspiration?

Image by Louise Sturges, shown in Group Show 38 of the Humble Arts Foundation.

At the end of a long painting session, my back hurts and my brain is exhausted. I want nothing but to lie in a hot bath and stare at the tiles. When I paint, I am reminded how stupid I can be, how much can be wrong, how chance can be more instrumental than skill or intention, how insignificant or life-changing a tiny mark can be, how beauty can be captured in the smallest things.

In short, when I paint, I feel humbled.