*
My woman’s been hell and gone trying to find us a new rig. I tell you what. She’s a damn pro now, though, know’s what’s what on sight. When she does finally pull the trigger on one, I know it’s gonna be tits.
I’m grateful to her, all the work she puts in.
I think we got a good thing going. I been lately feeling the years, you know, we’ve got friends getting sick, kids grown up and having more kids, I can look at a fence I built twenty years ago needs tearing down, you know, shit, we been on this planet a while now, we’re rolling into the dusky shadows of late afternoon. But man it gives me such pleasure to know her, to have used up these years with her, to have grown together like a couple of trees entangled at the trunks, branches and roots all intertwined. You couldn’t just cut one of us down anymore. We could go a week without a word between us and still know exactly what the other was thinking. She gets an itch and I start scratching. I get thirsty and I look around and she’s got a glass in her hand, headed my way. I couldn’t love her any better, at least I can die happy knowing whatever ways I failed this world failing in loving her won’t be one. Maybe I do it wrong sometimes, but I always do it.
You wouldn’t believe the oxytocin flowing around these parts with that new grandbaby. Awful lots of cooing and ahhing and isn’t he the cutest thinging. It’s sweet. It’ll melt your cold heart. There was times around here I would have put up even money we was past all the happiness, that we’d used up our allotment and had only the wasteland left to traverse. I’m glad to see I was wrong.
I was sitting the other day out on the back deck where I like to meditate and it hit me that what we’re always craving is to perceive these wonderful things, I mean, from a spiritual wonderment perspective we kind of seek these transcendental, holy states. I kind of always held in my mind since I was a kid I wanted to see wonders, I remember sitting in church imagining that if God really existed he should reveal himself to me by making the big cross levitate, or glow with light or something. You know, a sign. And even starting to meditate, I thought what I wanted was to see the world behind the world, to directly perceive the emptiness and bliss, to see Buddha or have my head explode or something. I don’t know. But anyway, what struck me was this focus on what was being perceived, like that was the deal. If you were spiritually creamy enough, you’d perceive something wonderful and amazing. Completely missing the point that it is perception itself that is wonderful and amazing. Know what I mean? It’s like, okay, isn’t that magical enough for you? You can pick up on the play of photons striking atoms and from that your brain creates this vivid and remarkable world full of birds and blue skies and wind through tree leaves and the face of your beloved, all manner of wonders and glories.
We get a never-ending magic show, day and night.
Wonders never cease.
*
Wonders never cease.
Think about that for a second, it’s the literal truth of things.
*
Namaste.
***
The Dishwasher's Tears 
oh yes.
I know you know.
I had this “experience” last night. I woke up thinking about gratitude and all of these thoughts washed over me. I had to go outside and look up at the stars over the Caribbean and even so, I couldn’t quite grasp what it was I was chasing with my thoughts but it was something like how the whole “gratitude movement” is such bunk. It’s a little like religion- why put some bullshit middleman in there when there is no need? It’s all miracles and gratitude is as much a part of it as suffering. They sell “gratitude journals,” man, to list the things you’re grateful for and I think there’s some sort of thing that’s supposed to happen if you’re more consciously aware of all the things you’re grateful for. And sure, all of that is fine but shouldn’t it just be part of us to recognize it all? I mean…I go around crying half the time because of the miracles as it is. I don’t know. Not exactly. But I think it may be bigger than what we can fit in a notebook. Does that maybe cheapen it? Are we not lenses through which it is all focused and thus made more of?
And yes, I AM sober. Why do you ask?
Well. I am grateful for you and your lens.
Mary-
I think you are so plugged in to the universe and how it loves and destroys us all in the same breath that you have no need of making that effort to consciously “see” what there is to be thankful for. Others, though, are too overwhelmed by their confusion to see what is so plainly before them. They only see the flaw, not the glory which surrounds and supports it. They are impoverished in the midst of limitless bounty. For them learning to see the truth is the only way they will begin to find some degree of ease in the world. I guess others can’t or won’t see the pain and suffering part, and are impoverished as well.
You get it all, though, which is why you are a great queen among mere mortals.
We learn, from watching you, how to live.
Very cool thoughts — coming here and reading them (your thoughts) is a bit like meditating to me. I watch them like clouds, they drift on by, here comes another one and then it drifts and I’m feeling all peaceful, really. Sometimes for the only time that day.
Elizabeth-
That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard in a long while. Thank you. All the time I think of you engaged in your great struggle and my heart is wounded for you, for what you must endure. The thought of you feeling a moment of peace and relaxation makes me quite happy.
i truly love reading about your love for your yolie.
Kay!
How is it that all you need to do is say hello and I’m flooded with joy?
I feel honored and proud to know how you cheer for us.
Love in all its forms demands celebration, what poor hosts we would be if we failed to throw it a big party every time we think of our great good fortune.
I am glad we are friends.
Any possibility you might attempt to articulate your creative process? I’m in total love with Amour (Hell, I’m in total love with love, and, happiness, after too many years of being highly suspicious and dubious of both) and I was wondering: When you begin a new piece, do you see it, finished in your mind? Or, do you sit down with a blank slate and let the mind, the day, the moment, take you, and the piece to where it wants to be? I’m just curious. I know some folks have a machine-like process of writing or creating art or whatever it is that floats their boat, while others, like me, are a bit looser and more free-floating. I can honestly say that I’ve never sat down with the idea of the poem or story, what I wanted it to say or be, in my mind, when I sit down and begin writing.
So, if you could, might you take down your garden path, your creative process? Like I said, I’m curious.
I work on an emotional level, I think. If I try an intellectual approach I find I often end up with a technically clean piece that is flat and lifeless. So, I start first with either the background, and play with figures in it, or with a figure and play with environments. Usually, though it is the figure that speaks loudest and that tends to be where I begin. I take them out of the background I found them in and look for the landscape that matches their soul. Then I just play around, sometimes a lot, sometimes not much at all, until it works. I always know when it happens, and that’s the reason I do it, that moment. Once the figure is home, then it’s just technical work to eliminate lighting errors or others aspects that make the scene read wrong to the eye, and adding layers and filters to unify colors and values and smooth out transitions. It’s all technical stuff I’m working with but I go by how the thing makes me feel when I look at it, all I’m seeking is my own emotional response to the character and her narrative. Often, it works. Sometimes it doesn’t and I just delete the whole thing. Which is easy, because if it doesn’t move me there isn’t any art there, it’s just an image.
On ‘amour’ I had her in mind, that stance, and then as soon as I started to work with her I saw that word amour written on a chalkboard and I knew those two things would be in dialogue. Once I got her in front of the word, I played around some and when I took her head off she came to life for me, she became universal, every woman, in a way, but still quite specific. Initially the mans hands were intended to act as wings or a headdress for her, but it became immediately apparent that his hands were not satisfied with that kind of passive, decorative role. He wanted to be touching her, trying to manipulate or control her, and there it was, love, two disembodied figures, male trying to be the creator god and control his creature, her majestic in her indifference to his attempts, but still, they are joined in something they would be incomplete without. Complex, difficult, poorly understood impulses both indulged and resisted. It felt real to me, without question. I left more space in it, more flaws on a technical level, his hands are bad, but that felt correct, it didn’t want to be clean.
Anyway, thanks for asking, and bearing with my rambling explanation. I’m pleased you liked it, better pleased that you are so happy and full of love!
What a gift this is, to “see” your creative process. Brother, I can’t thank you enough for sharing how one of your pieces is built from the ground up. It’s truly fascinating. It’s very much like getting to peek behind Oz’s curtain. Only better.
i really fell for this piece and your thoughts around it. i’ve been going though a rather transcendant state myself lately, and although i can see in part how it has emerged, the difference is nonetheless overwhelming. perhaps the changing climate has some good news for us as well as the bad. i mean, what is it gives me these giggles and gets me up at six in the morning, wide awake. whatever is transpiring, i’m for it, and i hope your communal charge goes on and on, brother. jim
We are always on the verge of wonder I think, and sometimes it breaks through and we become the giddy children we never stopped being, for a moment, before the veil descends again. Poets and artists stand at that place and lift that veil again and again, trying to look up mother nature’s skirt. I don’t think she minds.
Haven’t checked in for a while. Rich to hear about your life these days. Grandbabies, sitting, simplifying, tenderness about time. And creativity that grounds of everything. Just want to say thanks. Mary
Mary!
Such a pleasure and a blessing to hear from you! Yolie says hi. We miss you guys, and hope all is well with you. We think of you often.
Love,
Scott
Thanks Scott. You have such a great approach to others. Let Yolie know I have an old Dolphin that has been dutifully rehabbed. I am ready to live in it once the girls finish high school. Best to you both and your growing family.
Love, Mary
Mary!!!!!!
We will have to caravan around out in the desert together! As soon as Yolie grabs on to the next Dolphin that meets her standards we can start plotting- even if it takes years to put together a trip! It would be wonderful to find some isolated spot where we can hang out and talk story, watch the stars spin across the heavens.
you are the best.
yrs-
Scott
We are in!!
Mary
that wonders never cease is what moves me through the difficulties in life. and we are up to the eyeballs ensconced here – so are lots of people. no matter how much it can hurt, you just keep loving and keeping your eyes open to the beauty. and i thank you for being so transparent and sharing it – all of it.
Mary Jane-
I think you’ve got it figured out. Love with abandon, try to see everything as it is, which is astounding and limitless. Don’t try to protect yourself, because there’s no safety anywhere and it only causes needless pain.
I’m very glad to have you reading here and sharing your input. Thank you!
Namaste,
Scott