What do we call home? Is it the place we are most content and welcome, does its style and decor say something about who we are and when we leave our childhood home, do we ever find that same contentment? I lived in the same house for eighteen years, when I left I don’t think I ever missed the house as much as I missed the neighborhood, the landscape and obviously my friends. I moved to Texas from New Jersey and I had missed home for many years following the move but it was the landscape and the actual state more than anything else.

I have not had that feeling of being so happy to live in a place for many years. This changed when I had a family of my own, suddenly I realized during a trip back home to New Jersey that my home was actually where my family and sons were. I was in the Newark Airport and couldn’t wait to get back to my house in Texas-the ideal of home became family, where ever your loved ones are is where you live and belong.

After being divorced, my world had a strange scattered feeling of living in a house and living in a bit of interim. I’ve never felt that feeling of settling in and I almost feel since leaving home as a child I have never fully settled anywhere. Now, it’s my son and I, where ever he is for now that is my home, even though the original feeling of being safe and content isn’t the same. It’s my job to make him feel content and belong-as he grows and starts his own life, college, his own family-my idea of home will change once again.

I look forward to living in a place that feels like I belong, where contentment is just spending time enjoying my space-not sure where that will be but I figure life is a journey to learn and realize where you fit in the scope of people, places and things. Until that day, my life tends to revolve around my son and I as we explore and experience all we can with every vacation or as time allows.

Where do you consider home? Have you ever felt that feeling of settling in and making a place home. Do you think we belong a certain place and when we find it we just know it? Would love to hear your thoughts and comments.

This post is about creativity and how it pertains to writing-stories versus poetry. I have been writing poetry since I was ten, the freedom of free verse allows words to flow without being edited or altered. I will usually come up with a title or a general theme, the words would flow through a basic initial impetus but would create their own meaning from a subconscious state. If I know or realize what I am writing, the flow is gone and I tend to ramble between images and colors without a clear agenda.

There is a fermentation of ideas that seem to write themselves, collected from various snapshots from multiple images and ideas from the previous days or weeks. If I stop to realize the process or even write down any words or ideas, the idea is usually broken and the flow is interrupted.

I have recently realized the same process with short stories with even a more dramatic departure. I have always had some sort of concept or idea where the poetry will flow toward, with the short stories it seems they have their own beginning and end but I am not always aware of the final product. It’s kind of like watching a movie as you are writing the script. You are playing in a scene and writing the process and atmosphere but you only have small bits of information to work from and the more I write the clearer the final process begins. Again, I feel it is a subconscious state that I write in and the connections and comparison are not often clear on the initial thought, symbols and ideas become images and lessons that seems to create themselves, I just sit back and watch as the story creates itself.

How do you create words, do they flow subconsciously or do you craft them from a conscious state? Do you see a difference between the two forms of expression? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Cape San Blas, good news, bad news-it’s off the grid and that’s the only thing possibly negative, otherwise the surrounding landscape is amazing. You are fifty miles from the nearby Walmart, decide what you’ll need and bring it there otherwise risk a lot of driving for anything you need. It’s an oasis, a faraway place where you are surrounded by the gulf of Mexico to the east and the pristine waters of the bay to the west. The water is crystal clear, the areas to fish, snorkel and just get away are just incredible.

On our arrival, the first reviews were mixed-it’s too far from everything but it is beautiful. The longer we were there the more the feeling of peace and detachment grew and the more the beauty of the place captivated us all. There are long strips of road with the bay on one side and tall amazing pines and palm trees silhouetted against a crystal clear turquoise backdrop. Everywhere I looked a new painting practically created itself, I am in the process of buying very large canvases for the images that I sketched out and in the end I plan on having a whole series dedicated to Cape San Blas.

We stayed in a condo that overlooked the ocean with a balcony in every room, the sunsets were amazing, the breezes across the water in the morning and evening were fragrant with the smells of the ocean and the silence was only broken by the sound of tree frogs and native birds in the many beautiful trees that surrounded the campus. Conveniently located just down the street was the St Joseph Peninsula State Park, this is where we did most of our fishing and snorkeling.



There are so many different places to see and experience, we saw a eight foot saw fish, a giant conch, many deer that seemed indifferent to our presence and the treat of a manatee in the waters near Mexico beach. We kayaked and snorkeled around the jetties at the state park and enjoyed catching speckled trout up and down the beach as the broke the surface chasing bait fish. Luckily for us the weather kept at bay right up until the last few days but we were able to do all of our outdoor activities. Another experience that I have never seen is a breaching manta ray-my son and I were on our kayaks and both of our jaws dropped in disbelief.


The seafood in the areas is very fresh and delicious, we were all able to get our fill by the time the week was over-a notable favorite was Sunset Coastal Seafood-If you like lobster, I would highly recommend the lobster ravioli. We were a bit early but if we could have stayed a few extra days scallop season was just beginning which made it an interesting time to be there. Another point of interest are the sea turtles that call the area their home, we didn’t see any but they are known to lay their eggs on the beaches near the park.



We visited nearby Mexico Beach where there are restaurants and beautiful white beaches. This is where we saw the manatee and got to see some wonderful sunsets. We also enjoyed amazing sunsets along the coast. We visited some gift shops and checked out the pier and the jetty.

They call this area the forgotten coast and the fact that you don’t find crowded beaches and bad traffic I understand why they called it that. It’s a bit further down the pan handle and a bit off the grid but it’s exactly what I look for in a vacation- I came back with much to write about and many paintings on the sketch pad. I would highly recommend getting off the grid, even if it’s just for a week. Walk the beach, find things, fish, kayak-try Cape San Blas-definitely worth the exploration.

I feel like I have had a block both with writing and painting the last few months, maybe I shouldn’t complain because previously I had an amazing run of both paintings and writing so a block should probably have had been expected. Well a vacation can bring about the creative impetus an artist needs to rekindle that creative spark.

I will be painting a series of twelve paintings of the intercoastal sunsets and storms. I am excited because the images are all larger and a bit dramatic. I am experiencing a clarity and focus because the images that I am envisioning are very moody and include large skies and lots of light and shadow that have so recently been observed. I will be buying large canvases for the process and the images are so fresh in my mind, I don’t believe I will have any problem just showing up and letting God have the brush.

I will want the viewer to have that moment of hushed silence, the feeling of watching terns hover in the sky and the silence of the wind blowing across crystal clear swells. Again the idea isn’t to capture happy moments, but not sad or somber moments either-just the intensity and drama that brings beauty to darkness, mystery to the whisper of wind across the horizon and that haunted moment when we realize there is something larger than us moving the waves and controlling the magic behind a sun descending in a late afternoon sky.

I just got back from a vacation from Florida, something my family and I have done every year for the last six years or so. We had an amazing vacation and yet the feeling you get immediately after said vacation is of exhaustion, stress and should haves and would haves. I think the first couple of times we were all just happy to be in Florida without any specific expectations-the experience is amazing because it created itself without expectation and became the vacation that it was.

The simple act of vacationing becomes an endless loop with something missing but your not sure what, it just doesn’t seem to fulfill what you were expecting. I believe what is missing is that initial wonder of seeing and experiencing things for the first time-I am going to digress a bit but I hope with clarity.

So here is my digression-a long standing vacation becomes like the marriage that seems to stale-your not sure what is missing but something just doesn’t seem to offer the same contentment anymore. I believe in a marriage it is just the fact that a single ingredient in the relationship is missing, something either of the spouses felt was insignificant but it meant everything to the relationship. So back to the vacation-something we lose in the translation, something that made the first and second time so special seems to be overlooked or left out, it is finding this illusive ingredient that brings back the magic and wonder in a vacation the same as the relationship.

I hope that made sense, so this time we went somewhere new to resurrect the new and exciting elements of the that first vacation. My son and I have been fighting back and forth between the pros and cons of familiarity vs new and excitement. The great thing about familiarity as it relates to fishing, camping and dining-you know what to expect and aren’t disappointed. The great thing about the new and exciting is just that-it’s new and exciting.

After all the time and effort and expense we tend to be disappointed because the vacation just didn’t meet our expectations but when you return to the same vacation in our fond memory all we remember are those special things we did, this is why I consider a vacation like the movie we have to see again-we are too thick into the vacation and too deep in the trench of expectations that we don’t realize that we are actually enjoying the day and relaxing. When you go back through our pictures and memories we will realize we had the vacation we needed we just couldn’t see through the distractions of stress, exhaustion and aggravation that is often the family vacation.

I am not a mortalist, I state that now and I’ll explain it further as most of you have never heard of a mortalist. It all started five years ago or so, although I’m not sure of the first time or date where I heard the news. A woman was disinterred because they were trying to prove her death was caused by a diet drug called Thin-2WIN-of course every one insists that we are all the same and it doesn’t matter what size or shape we come in-everyone had flocked to this diet drug that insisted that it took the pounds off and it no one could argue it did the job.

The lawyers and doctors had almost collapsed in shock as the woman sat up and asked, does this coffin make my hips look too thin or maybe it was can I get a cheeseburger? There were lots of rumors and hearsay but they all took a backseat to the fact that a woman had literally come back from the dead. I know you are asking but what about the embalming fluid-she complained of its discomfort and there are drug manufacterers insisting they can fix that. The culprit diet drug was soon taken off the market and coffins were being disinterred even faster than they were being put in the ground.

First thing that happened in result of the mass of new bodies and social security numbers that were being brought back was a new career choice-the mortal lawyer was born. There were many insurance payments in limbo and lawsuits for wrongful death were being overturned. The government stopped all their customary lawmaking and went into a new role of laws for hypermortals- a new term that was just getting included in the webster dictionary. The guinness book of world records now had to have a new division of its record books because the rules were different as a new species of mortals were born.

One law that was enacted was a law that stated all deceased people were not to be burried but put in a small box, large enough not to make them uncomfortable but small enough not be an eyesore to the public, also there were mandatory releases inside because it was cruel to burry a zombie and for those that weren’t quite ready to come back to life, there were books and movies that had to be included during the burial. Cremation became an ugly word and their was the discussion where did life truelly end, words like grays and hybermortals became passe. No one dared to use the word coffin or casket, the term to use was secondary dwelling or cryb- kind of a cross between a crib and crypt. There were new businesses being spawned, making new homes for the undead, burrial plots were being resold again and again. The diet drug of course was taken off the market being replaced with a new improved drug called Thin-2-reallyWIN- it was the same drug but it really took the pounds off. The whole scope of the human appearance was changing-certain advertising like gray is beautiful, not just mortal hypermortal-beauty is only flesh deep. Not all hypermortals ate brains as in the old stereotypical undead image but some did. It became a crime to talk against them, after all they had already died and they needed to be respected instead of maligned.

This brings me to today-my daughter brings a zombie-oh I’m sorry, a hypermortal home. I must admit again not a prejudice thing but I never liked them. They really smell bad and it’s hard to talk with someone whose jaw falls into your mashed potatoes at the dinner table, awkward takes a whole new meaning. My daughter insists he’s got the bluest eyes she’s ever seen, I told her it was the fading of the cornea post mortem but she insists they’re beautiful. She said they are the windows to the soul, I just told her that he needed to stop sharing the remnants of his soul at my dinner table. Of course I was seen by the whole family as rude and judgemental.

After a piece of his jaw fell into the mashed potatoes, I tried desperately to change the subject, I asked what he used to do when he was……ok there was this long pause and more awkardness. My daughter interjected that he was a contractor before his accident, she insisted I feel what was left of his bicep-I called it rigormortis, she called it a lean toned arm. He said he was unemployed at the moment because grays just don’t get the good jobs these days. I wondered of his prospects but he seemed a bit close mouthed, well as close mouthed as he could be having lost the bottom of his jaw. I will also comment on the fact that he stared a lot-kind of zombie like-but again I was seen as rude and judgemental. You can understand how I ended the dinner when he mentioned that he loved the fact that my daughter really had great brains-I know what he meant but I just couldn’t take it anymore and that was the end of our cordial dinner.

Since than we have never completely recovered as a family, they tend to stay at their crypt-I’m sorry cryb-it’s a small place that they say they are happy living in but I just thought my daughter deserved more. He has since got a job at a carnival as the living dead guy but since the anti-prejudice ordinances went into effect-he lost his job. So I ask you-how would you feel if your daughter brought home a hypermortalist-I don’t care what you call them, they are a bit creepy and I don’t see any future for him and my daughter-he’s a cold hearted bastard and if that makes me an antimortalist than guilty as charge-signed a concerned father-I’ve wondered where we will have the wedding at a church or a cemetery and what do you bring as far as gifts? so many new intricacies in this brave new world-what’s a dad to do?

Creativity is a strange process and sometimes the simplest process seems to have intricacies we wouldn’t realize if it weren’t for having a lifetime of studying it first hand. I have a theory about inspiration and its fleeting presence it usually affords. I will usually have titles of pieces of writing and words that are scattered, this will be the first sign that words of some sort will be assembled for a poem or a story. I have often tried to save just the bits of words so as to save the feeling if I don’t have time to get to writing at that moment and there is a problem with that sort of jotting down thoughts.

I believe that the words come in streams that are stored in memory- this process is in the subconscious state and the words suspend, not even necessarily connecting or forming specific thoughts or ideas but creating a backdrop of texture for upcoming words and ideas. When I write the words and ideas down it seems to me that it takes the words from the subconscious state and collects the thought in the conscious state. The conscious state being more pragmatic insists on responding to the process but never develops the words the way the subconscious does easily. I know it almost seems like two entities speaking simultaneously and before you go get the nice people in white coats-it is the process of creativity where two hemispheres of the brain decipher and create what will be a poem, essay or bit of writing. I think as soon as the words go into the conscious the thought and reason ignores the connection of things that don’t connect and the rational mind will not relate the words in the same process.

A different form of the same process is when words stream for a week or so without being written down, this also occurs in the painting process of images as well but now I will relate it just to writing.
The words of experiences and snapshots of life float in the subconscious until one day with just enough time in introspection and availability of clarity, words from all the different snapshots form together with little effort than quick fingers usually on the computer. I this process I will often have up to fifteen or so poems written in the span of thirty minutes, I don’t remember what I wrote in that time and the words all flow together easily without having to over edit-to me this is the most natural form of the creative process.

Has anyone else experienced this form of stream of consciousness and what breaks your stream of creativity? Would love to hear comments on the subject as it is a strange and magical process creativity.

I have recently had a ridiculously busy time of painting where I ended up with upwards of forty new paintings, pet cartoons, tshirts and UNvalentines greeting cards-after this great manic production period I am left with the interim of creativity. After a few weeks of not knowing what to do with myself mixed with a bit of paintings being debuted, I have decided to reboot my processes. To be successful in a business that stems from a manic stream of creativity, we creative types must find a bit of order. Creativity without some sort of discipline is scattered paintings and madness with nothing being sold and needing instead to hire a person to handle marketing procedures.

I don’t believe each can be done together as effectively as one professional handling the marketing and the artist handling the creative work, I do believe there needs to be and can be a happy medium. My first step was to cull an email account from 10,000+ emails down to less than 500, an amazing and daunting task in itself. I have gone through old files and paperwork and literally dug myself out of a mound of paperwork. I believe that once I am not under a mountain of confusion and disorder the discipline and order of marketing will be able to coincide with the manic state of creativity.

I am excited about the prospect of getting to read emails, assess multiple galleries where I have my work and plan for the next step of marketing when the creativity is reignited. So how do you find organization? How do you maintain a balance between creativity and production and the principles and objectives of marketing your work. Would love to hear your input and comments on rebooting for organization and balancing art with marketing.