Chaos

Have you ever noticed that some of the best parts of life are messy, and sometimes they stay messy.  Someone once said that the sign of a house with homeschoolers in it was the general messiness, because if the house was neat it meant nothing was happening— except cleaning.

In my life there never seems to be enough time to get everything clean and organized and still have time to engage in creativity. If I (and anyone who comes to my house) have to put up with my general messiness so that I still have time to be creative, so be it.

I’m not promoting dirty houses or lives, we do clean around our mess, but busy lives full of many varied activities and creative people tend to create a certain amount of chaos, and chaos can be crazy, and those creative juices often make a mess and get all over everything.

I do like to have a path through the mess, but I don’t want to stem the flow of creativity.  Yes, I could probably have a neater, cleaner place, but then I wouldn’t have as much time, if any, for writing, reading, art, or just making a mess. Besides, a little bit of chaos- does a body good, right?

Footprints

My kids and I were taking a walk on the beach and noticed that some footprints are more distinct than others.  Some birdprints are distinct like this, and sometimes they are just indistinct scratches. Some people leave heavy distinct shoe or foot prints, and some leave hardly any trace at all, depending on their weight and their sole (soul?).

It made me think about life, and the kind of “footprint” we are leaving.  If you go into the State and National forests these days, they want you to “leave no trace”.

Am I leaving a footprint? Is it large and distinct?

How do I want to be remembered? What do I want to be remembered for?

I want my footprint to be distinct and, not necessarily huge, but large enough to be remembered.   I want to make a difference to my children, to my friends and family, and to those who read my words or see my creations.    J

Who are we?

Have you found yourself yet?  I don’t know if I will ever be in a state of knowing for certain WHO I AM.

It seems to me that whoever the “I” in me is, it is too malleable, or ephemeral to pin down. I am much more at home in the abstract, in the mind. My story characters seem more clear to me, than I do at times.  Focusing on myself doesn’t seem to help, it only brings with it criticism or confusion–”Who is this person?  That can’t possibly be me.”

Are we, what others precieve us as? Or are we who we preceive ourselves to be?

Are we a better judge or are others? Are we, what others see in our work, our paintings, our writings.  If we painted a portrait of ourselves, would we capture the true self, or just the image we present to the world.  Is there an answer to this question?

( My task to my self:  create a portrait of your-self out of collage materials, post it soon. )

Bumps in the Road

I think perhaps that life is like a bump in the road. For some the bump is like a rolling hill, smoothly flowing up and then back down to the end. For some of us however, the bumps come more often, or quite unexpectedly, like the highway along a cliff where the ground keeps falling away under the road, it’s more of a, “whoa, where did that come from?” kind of bump.

And for some of us the bump is more like going down ruff road in a car with no shocks, if you try to talk, your words come out in staccato.

The point; in life and in art there are always going to be a few bumps, the solution is to keep moving. Imagine perhaps that your road is a river, river stones are smooth because of that constant polishing that the river provides, because it just keeps moving joyfully forward.

So move joyfully forward, keep your dream of the smooth road in your minds eye, and breath, smile, be joyful, keep going.

It is what it is, if you don’t like it, change it.

So often, I wish I had come to writing earlier in life. I wish I’d been encouraged to write or do art. Instead, left to my own devises, I read and drew little, but daydreamed obsessively.

I take solace in thinking that perhaps this is what I needed to do. Yet, the press of the decades gone by sometimes sends me into anxious moments knowing that I may not get all the words down that I need to get down before I can no longer get them down.

All I can do is write as much as I can, as often as I can, for as long as I can, remembering that the time I am not writing because of other life obligations is all grist or chafe or wheat for the mill. Sometimes it’s juicyer things like, anxt, sorrow, joy, beauty, pleasure and pain and it all goes into the mill. It goes in as one thing, and comes out as something else, mixing together like some great internal stew. One can only hope that with the right seasonings we can turn it into something really tasty, and not dog food. Unfortunately, you don’t know until you’re done and then, it is what it is.

That seems to me a catch word for this age that we’re in, whether you’re talking about relationships, loss, love, situations, problems, survival. It is what it is, if you want it to be something else, then change it. Just do it, whether it’s writing, painting, stopping smoking, talking to the person you have unresolved issues with, just get out and do it.

Make it what you want it to be. It may take awhile to accomplish the whole change, but it will never happen unless you start. It’s like sitting at the dark end of the tunnel, you’ll never get out into the light unless you get moving. So take a step, start now.

Focus

Some say good readers make good writers…. I agree, and I also think a love of words is primary. Sometimes it’s the words we can’t speak, that we are compelled to write. Sometimes we have to learn to sequester the words until they are on the page.

It is also helpful to have the ability to sequester the self, to pull back within yourself, to focus, even in a room full of people or surrounded by chaos. Pulling into ourselves we can create a whole new world, find the story, hear the words, let them congeal on the page.

I go through periods when my concentration is not at it’s best, when I feel I need quiet in order to find that world, to concentrate and to write. There are other times, when the things around me don’t bother the ability to concentrate–to change my focus. We’re no longer concentrating on what our friend is saying or the TV is spouting, or where we are, we’ve pulled our focus in to that other world,

In this time of: TV, ipod, work, kids, friends, so much to do. We feel good about being able to multi-task, and find our selves bragging about being able to do so. I agree, I think multi-tasking is a good skill to employ at times. However, the ability to focus, to concentrate on just one thing, loosing yourself in that inner space, is one of our greatest resources, and in this culture often an underestimated asset.

So, put your worries and everything else aside, and step into your mind, go flying, or mountain climbing or step through that door into…….a whole new world.

Mornin’ Sun

• Most of the time when I write and create I prefer silence. But lately, I’ve craved music, and although many writers I have read, prefer classical music when writing, I love modern slow blues, folk or folk blues. Peter Green Splinter Group’s song “Don’t Walk Away”, and Jennie Devoe’s “Here on Earth”, playing now for me on Pandora Radio, is music at it’s finest.
• At times I create on long distance drives with rockn’roll, but writing while driving is not as easy, nor advisable.
• Then there’s just listening to the day, the sunrises, sunsets, the ocean, birds, crickets, the wind.

Heart strings

My children, and my love for them were the impetus that jump started my writing and creating. When they are gone from me they create another type of creativity born from longing. I may have more time to write when they are gone, but they also inspire me with their presence.

Your departure.
The strings of my heart
unleash a spool, long as the road.

jp

(Go to Pandora.com for your listening pleasure, Sonja Kitchell or Inga Rumpf are some of my favorites.)

Light

Singing, laughing, writing, painting, creating, can cure what ails you, can lift you up when you’re feeling blue, can assuage your grief/your doubt/your fear.

Nature sings all the time, in it’s sunrise and sunset’s, in it’s spectacular array of colors all around us.

Nurture yourself, and let your heart speak through your: writing, painting, photography, singing, creating.

Begin today.

Poetry soup

RAINY DAYS

rainy days

my blood runs

cold

my heart yearns

for home

and for a peace I

do

not

know

5/28/98

BARE CANVAS

The subtlety of the skin

stretched over canvas.

The fingers of the hand

bent in an arch,

like a fine bird.

The self,

removed in part,

from the bare structure,

situated above the floor.

As a thin brush

follows a line,

from the back of her neck,

down to the base of one ankle.

10-28-1979

Julie Pickerill