I realize that the story of the Grinch and the classic A Christmas Carol are works of fiction but they do speak to how we chose to live our lives. In Ebenezer’s case it wasn’t a matter of being an evil miser but more personal experiences that form how he sees the world and how he sees himself. I believe it is perspective and sometimes we need to step out of our circumstance and realize what our lives and our legacy truly mean. There is a wonderful truth to the saying, “you can’t take it with you”, and so while we’re here we need to give to others, not because the government wants us to, not because it is popular among our piers but because it brings us joy. It brings joy to give freely in very subtle ways-the liberation of our material inclinations, the feeling of touching others and making others feel special and the reward of feeling free of material attachments.
Another character that strives to teach us about ourselves is the Grinch-again a creature of sorts that others have shunned, either in reality or from the Grinch’s’ perspective of how he is seen in Whoville. The resentment and the envy of this wonderful season the Grinch attempts to destroy for all of Whoville and yet he hears them sing in the morning, even after all they have lost. No one can steal Christmas or the seasons from anyone-we give it away freely. We change the way see holidays, we alienate ourselves and create the season from our perspective, now I don’t think we can grow our hearts no more than they shrink from lack of use but I do think we can guard them to the point that they don’t feel anything and what you lose compared to what you keep safe is a shameful trade at best. To me this safety is like a wounded leg that you keep protected, it never heals and it never really hurts but you also never walk again.
We don’t just grow old and bitter-we chose to see only the things around us that seem to hurt us or make us feel less. We can chose to find peace or we can complain because there is none.
I’ve had a very tough season getting into the holiday spirit this year, still not quite sure why but my son becoming a full-blown teen is probably a major factor. I thought this morning on the way to work about all of my blessings-I even called a few to reach out and be proactive-something we sometimes lose site of in our busy lives. So I asked for some sort of sign, for some way of getting into the feeling of the holiday and I realized both from previous holidays and from the things I witnessed on the road how no one nor no circumstance can steal this holiday from us-for us believers there is the greatest gift of all and for those who believe in other things there is family and a chance to reconnect with what the year has given us-good or bad.
I than realized that some of the most terrible moments in recent seasons had turned into what the holiday is really about. One night before Thanksgiving, quite a few years back, I almost lost my wife and yet it turned out to be the greatest thanksgiving I can remember. I felt a presence that I cannot explain and a peace that is indescribable, even through all the darkness the true meaning of the season presents itself in a language and with a presence that we would never ask for nor understand if it weren’t thrust upon us. Another holiday that should have been horrible was when my mom fell and broke her hip-we spent the holidays in a hospital in Plano and again, Christmas stripped away from the whole lights and glitter, presents and tinsel is the feeling of having family close, for reaffirming what you have instead of missing what you don’t.
A third realization I had was while passing the cemetery. I noticed the blue tents-I hate blue tents and what they signify in this particular cemetery. I watched families with that same familiar look-the faraway silent glance down, the indifferent stone and that uncomfortably green field where we lay our most precious gifts. This life is not a given, the next day is not a given, we need to enjoy each moment not for what it’s missing but for what it is. This can often be very difficult with depression and the inability to feel, loneliness and the feeling of isolation and circumstances that try us to our cores but we need to realize we are only here for a short time, the pain will fade, the time will pass and we just need to celebrate as much as we possibly can even though often we need to dig deeper and see clearer than we perhaps want to. I wish everyone a merry Christmas and Happy New Year with hope for tomorrow and peace for today.
In the midst of winter-one last glimmer of spring-the seed of the nasturtium, out of the blue gray leaves, the dried up corpses of summer-out of the cold gray sky where no light escapes, not a bit of color nor trace of warmth-the nasturtium….Call it hope in the midst of darkness-one seed on the edge of days ending. Don’t expect the rich orange blooms nor the seeds to germinate only enjoy this moment-the amazing hours where all the color exists and you taste it just like lemons in the spring. One short embrace of moments passing means everything.
Inspired by a friend who shows me color in the depths of winter…
Winter brings the misty clouded landscape, much like my thoughts these days. A block I have experienced for the last few months has been considerably daunting as of lately. It’s like having too much to process, too many thoughts, words and images in memory and in the end, nothing forms. Lately I have been bringing my camera along with me while driving my son to school and the back roads have become my subject matter-no words but I think the feeling and emotion in the images speak more for the lack of words than words themselves.
I missed one day-there actually was light rising over the remnants of the lake and sure enough I didn’t bring my camera that day. The most illusive these days is that subtle light that touches things-you don’t even have to create the image, the image becomes because the light has so much character-the last time I saw this phenomenon was in the rich light of Oakland California-the electric hour series-it seems that was when the feeling and words seemed to really surface and I felt more freedom than I have in quite a while. The problem is how we bury ourselves in our everyday lives, my bit of strength and renewal is nature-something I have missed in my life these days.
There are moments in the creative process where there is no thinking or envisioning the image, the colors or words-they are and they simply surrender to the creative spirit. We can attempt, as we tend to do to over think the creative moments we are blessed to have and this is when that all too common writers’ block becomes the obstacle that doesn’t seem to fade away. Autumn and winter have always been high points in my creativity but these days it seems the lack of true light supersedes the feeling of drama or atmosphere that is inherent in the winter landscape.
I guess I’m being hard on myself in the fact that in the last series I painted over twenty paintings and began a series of stories, new website and various other avenues of creativity but really it seems that doesn’t matter as much as the need to create and the feeling when the lack of inspiration is a weight on the creative soul.
I have started to drive with my sixteen year old son and I’m happy to say he is doing quite well. It is somewhat like teaching painting as I have previously described as you notice so many nuances you don’t normally realize in the second nature activity of driving. So many things that you do without thinking now I have to articulate and so far he has been very responsive and open to the vast store of information. I’ve been driving for quite a while, I’m just saying.
Here’s the wonderful part-a teenager who a week ago was barely interested in basic conversation is now not only participating but open to what dad has to say-I know it’s the privilege and excitement of driving for the first time but I am happy with the transient feeling of actually having an opinion that is not lame.
I must admit I have not done well in the transitioning from my role as parent and sometimes buddy to one that watches as a teenager maneuvers his way through becoming an adult-I have felt somewhat out of place and a feeling of a fading identity and passion. Now suddenly I am left with myself-what to do, how to start the next chapter while being close enough to be there when ever he needs me-it’s a fine line but I am maintaining my footing and every time we seem to drift so far apart as for me to be rather irrelevant we find another bridge that seems to bring us back-enter the parent taught drivers’ course and a process in which so far I am enjoying-lots of satirical cartoons to follow. Please feel free to share your experience of parent taught driving.
Creativity is always a mystery, seems the closer you get to a vision the more you learn about creating and the more you learn about yourself. I read somewhere that we write to learn, not just because we love writing or seem to be driven to it, even more important, we are constantly rediscovering the obvious and reinventing how we see and experience our lives. I have recently had a huge creative block in general and aside from small drips of creative activity, it has been an uncomfortable dry spell.
The other day I finally had the beginning of a break through-the problem with having a break is there is no beginning or end-it just happens and almost like a dream disappears as quickly as it appears. My first obvious sign is a strong feeling toward music or atmospheric weather-I start remembering things, it’s like a film strip that suddenly starts running. If I am lucky enough to have the time and solitude enough to capture it, it’s quite an exciting experience.
Words begin and stream without logic, they connect and capture the sounds and meter on their own without my being cognizant of any attempt. For a brief moment I am not even present as the words flow from the keyboard or the pen without any control or censoring-this is when I know I have made the break from the conscious state.
The first poem in this series began from driving through the country on a cold winter morning-it just simply captures a drive but it also speaks to the way I felt and the feeling that attaches itself to a cold gray winter day. The first bit of words are more atmospheric than introspective.
A Winter Sky
The winter sky is pale and white
Not the slightest inference
Of any kind of light
Sleep among the cold stones
In grass tall enough to hold up the sky
Winter infects the rooms
All of the darkness is tainted
Winter evenings are different from the rainy
Doldrums of spring
Or the stagnant green shadows of summer
The darkness is grey
You can taste it
Feel it like a second skin
And we wake among the ruins
Of the summer harvest
The guardian still stands
Tall enough to ignore the weight of clouds
On its shoulder
Even the interruption of the process is recorded as the disruption of the writing process brings about more words about the act of being interrupted, again this is more about what is happening at the moment rather than the process that is more connected to the subconscious feeling
An Interruption
An interruption, words from a dangerous stream
I’m tired of keeping them in
They feel like acid under the skin
Quiet moments
The edge of heat and sweat
Frustrated shadows
You walked in while the words were making themselves
Brave structures against the wind
I’ve been dying to begin
Just as I heard myself writing
A figure walks by
And the interruption
Deletes the flow
But opens up a dam on the other side
Where other thoughts and feelings
Cryptic images
Hide
Winter Revisited
Out across the winter field
The crow is full but starving
Blackbirds in fits of flight
Back and forth blending in with
The edges of a field
In turmoil
I could just reach out and you might be there
If you were not a shadow
And if I were not a ghost
But I urge myself another breath
And I clamor to exist in this hollow realm
Where I am the one that runs the Rutter
While there’s no one at the helm
With winter comes the feeling of mortality, the realization of change and we watch the seasons turn-all the thoughts and fears that keep themselves hidden in the subconscious now become more available. Winter becomes a metaphor and the outside atmosphere and the physical presence of winter becomes less than the feeling or the thoughts that winter evokes.
Mortal
I feel the twinge in the chest
Could this be the final moment
And I wait for the absence of breath
And the hollowed ground
Insists it will find me
Just as the cars were lining up
Long black cars
Under a winter sky
How cold and frozen you feel
Afraid to die
And that earth
How solid and unmoving it can be
It stares out of the darkness
And fixes its gaze
On you and me…
Blackbird
Perched on the edge of the steel fence
Ablack bird reminds me
Its still there
Walk in the sunshine
Or its absence
It lingers across a field
And a ghost holds my hand
The empty hole to fill
No one understands
How deeply cold can etch the spine
How winter skies can rob us blind
Not the slightest glimmer
Not even a breath of precious light
Remembrance
But this is what you were waiting for
To be embraced in the icy fingers
Of a season
Sadness, melancholia
For no reason
You reached over the edge of the grave
Looking for just a glimpse
Just a remnant to save
But this life
How strange the story
Fails to comply
With the image that jumped and reached for the heavens
In the blindness of a childs’ innocent mind
This section was actually from strange recent dreams I had-everything that is recorded over a period of weeks or months are played out as the words flow-it is a quick process-if I have any idea of what I’m writing I know the flow has stopped. If I have to think about what rhymes or the next word that needs to fit or the consonant count-it’s time to stop writing.
Fearless
I saw my coffin in a dream but it did not contain me
It did not keep me
I was wild like the wind and violent like the evening
Across the skies
A storm I can barely describe
And the box
Aligned in its space under concrete
In the selfish ground
Silence of dark evenings
The summer rain and the complicated evenings
Autumn
Where the stone that stares indifferently back
Says nothing
And I was above clouds
And I felt the magnetism of the universe
As I passed by
I saw my coffin in a dream
And it did no longer hold me
Did not contain, any remnant of me.
Much of the words are not necessarily about anything that happened or anything specific-its more the subtle nuances of a feeling-the feeling can have many symbols and processes to describe it but there is often no specific point or actual event that is being described.
Ghost
You saw my lack of confidence
I shared it like a secret
I woke toyour face and I was more alone than before
The open room
That quiet cold space
The fading fragrance of some familiar perfume
The sheets like waves of some ugly ocean
A tide that never compromised
Found my legs outstretched
The empty space beyond the edge of the bed
Is an empty room where we barely lay our heads
And sleep alone in this forest
Where no one would dare mention the child
Asleep at the bough of a tree
Whose roots quake and bend with the earth
As it shifts
The tiny figure that escaped the autumn sky
Deep into the angry earth
A dream as we awoke
And you passed silently by….
The last two are the remnants of the flow and I almost didn’t include them but it seems I would be better off showing the process in which the flow of words abruptly stops and than words and connections become forced and awkward. Another process is when thoughts end abruptly as in these last two.
Sleep as if nothing could be more innocent
Than dreaming
Precocious child
We have shoes to fill
You often saw us as kids
But all remnants of our follies
Hide in attics
And storage
Out in sheds with the rats
And I can barely remember the ghost
Of myself
But I know it was happy once
Do you remember your heart
You were a child in my arms
You had photos of us
So where did all of our innocence go
I can’t remember your face
I don’t remember your voice
But I remember I was happy than
As the title explains-the creative inspiration is a very subtle quiet place-it is only induced by introspection, time and the ability to allow the words and feelings to flow through whatever tool is available. I used to write more with a pen but these days it seems I can write faster and more legible with the use of the keyboard which seems to interfere less with the creative flow. The drawback to this is that I enjoy writing on location-somewhere outdoors and in nature but no devices such as laptops have become as comfortable to me as the trusty keyboard-maybe that’s the next evolution in my process. I would love for any of the creative readers to share their story of that creative moment and where happened before during and after that process.
A high-speed film, this life that runs through its cues without me. It’s an absence no one but me would realize but its very profound-I just don’t know what to do with my mind, my body-I can’t relax, I can’t feel anything but the disorder of my life. I am an unmade bed that is starting to show signs of wear.
I drove to work today with an unfamiliar sound and it got through and past the wall of chaos that I have been building-you didn’t know I was a carpenter, hell an architect at that, your wondering what the sound was; rain. It’s amazing how a simple sound can bring you back and give a semblance of peace from chaos.
I woke up somewhat today-even though the process has left me feeling very much like an unmade bed-I’m barely together-it’s like being really drunk and not being able to see if you’ve put the right shoe on the wrong foot-it’s a loss of composure I guess. I feel like I’m coming back to a program already in process and I’ve missed most of the plot-I have an amazing rush of creative ideas but they are like that feeling when you are really hungry but you can’t decide what you want to eat.
You can read this and see the intermittent clarity or lack completely I guess-I’ve cleaned up my office, I put a small light on, it has a feeling as if someone works here-maybe I’ll introduce myself. I came in wet from outside, remember it’s raining, and than my monitor wasn’t working so I decided to clean my office while not being able to get in touch with anyone to help. I found a monitor and when moving the old monitor out of the way I realized the plug that goes into the back of the monitor was not quite pushed in-so now my monitor is working-Incessant sweating, still wet from outside but now I have a clean and ordered desk-the yin is fighting with the yang and I’m not sure who is winning or even who yin or yang is? So now I’m finding a bit of calm to write-shouldn’t be right now but it’s kind of helpful stopping and writing and I’m feeling a touch of control even by the time I am writing this part of a short story that turned into more paragraphs than it deserved.
“You can’t grow lemons in Texas”, that’s what she said about twelve years ago. Now I have a ten year old lemon tree grown from seed-it’s 4 foot tall and has produced one flower-not one lemon. I have brought it in every year and by the time it’s just about had all it can stand of a bathroom with minimal light it gets outside again and does well for a bit. Now its showing signs of wear, its drooping-I’m not sure if I’m holding on to something that would be better off just dying-maybe it’s the only thread to a past that seems to be lingering-no lemons, no lemonade just green leaves that grow, mature and fall to the ground without finding their purpose.
I walked into my backyard with my camera, intent on finding something to shoot, instead I opted to trade the camera for binoculars as there was nothing dramatic about the light. I have been saying for the last few weeks I need a nature retreat, a place to go to just listen and enjoy nature around me, little did I know it was right outside my backdoor. When you photograph or aim to paint sometimes you miss the obvious, the drama of sound, muted colors and the low-key leading character that trades drama for beauty and simplicity.
As soon as I took my place in the center of my yard, a place that needs to be tended to for winter cleanup, I found that silence that perfect place where we seem to almost not exist, even if for just a moment. I realized how we as the human species could learn much from the simple act of watching and listening to nature. First of all there is no sadness or melancholy in nature-the somber colors of fall are just a process, a time for change. We often make the act and process of death so morbid and depressing and yet in nature it is simple and natural-just another process.
Now that the nests are empty, the birds are scavenging for food, fattening up for the process of a long winter-yes even in Texas. The leaves have all turned either colorful for fall or just simply died off the stems due to a cold snap. I listen to the sound of a storm whispering in the distance, there is a tension in the air, a beautiful simplicity that if you don’t stop, you never notice. Even the birds have given up their colorful summer hues for a winter gray and yet I don’t feel the somber feeling we as people experience-nature never stops, never depresses it just moves to the next process and there is something very comforting about that.
If we could only enjoy the feeling of everyday, be idealistic and colorful for our early life, burst like the early spring blooms and run after our thoughts and ideas with the vigor and colors of spring. In the summer of our lives, build wonderful nests that we fill with our futures, enjoy every bit of raising and freeing our young to carry on what we started however they see fit. And in the autumn of our lives, to fill our books with bright colors and share with our children and their children our many diverse pasts and all the stories and ideas we’ve collected. With the approach of winter if we could replace the black we celebrate with the thought of spring, with the feeling that everything we do is just a process, not a beginning or end. Celebrate our lives and replace the grays and blacks with muted colors with reverence to illustrate the lives we lived.
I got this feeling, a fleeting feeling that all would be okay and that was just a moment in nature, a time that I actually took a deep breath and listened to what nature teaches us every day and it was beautiful as it was comforting.
Artbygordon: Original oils on canvas, Original pastels on paper celebrating the beauty and mystery of nature. Water and night skies are my specialties.
