Post 38 of 92

Doing everything I can to procrastinate.  The Queen of Procrastination.  A recurring, even dominant theme throughout my life.  It's a form of self-sabotage.  I don't understand why but suspect, when all is said and done, it is fear which underlies this weird action resulting in non-action.

I know a man, an extremely creative man.  He paints and his paintings sell, he composes and his compositions are played in the public arena, he writes and his books are published.  Obviously he is naturally, one could say preternaturally talented, but he is also disciplined.  He allocates time to each of his creative talents.  He says it's because it's because he has a mortgage to pay but I suspect it's more than that.  Being fearful and procrastinating is kind of shitting on the gift one was given.  I'm no genius but I was always one of those kids that could draw - not as well as others in class but enough to get asked occasionally to draw something.  (Colleen Moore, wherever you are, you were the one that could draw - what did you end up doing?  I heard you took your drawing and your flute playing and went to Africa).  At any rate, I admire this man and his discipline.  I also find him a bit scary.  He's as gentle and nice a man as can be but the will which underlies that discipline is iron.  And he's courageous.  Not afraid of failure, not afraid of having a go  - or not afraid in any way that matters.

Joined a new yoga class this morning after a few tryout classes.  This studio has mirrors.  Oh the brutal truth of wall to wall mirrors.  Looking out from behind these eyes, catching my image in the odd window or from the waist up in the bathroom (avoiding the mirrored doors of the closet) I thought, eh 62?  not bad for my age.  Oh, the lies I tell myself.  The mirror on the yoga studio wall...the first class, after the initial shock, I managed to pretty much avoid seeing myself focusing instead on the floor or the ceiling, the instructor or some vague indeterminate point in the middle distance. 

But the truth will not be avoided.  In the scheme of things with war and famine and global warming my body image matters not one whit.  And yet, and yet.  It is everything too for it reflects the person I am - a bit lazy, a bit lacking in will power, a bit sloppy, a lot overindulgent. 

So I decided today to look squarely at myself in the mirror.  I was next to a floor lamp so couldn't really avoid it as I was well lit.  

In my long life I have made many resolutions, some of which stuck, most of which have fallen by the wayside like so many banana peels.  One thing I haven't done however is give up.  So I try again, to not be afraid of what might be beneath this fear, this comforting layer of fat which I use to protect myself from life's hard knocks, and to - what a horrible phrase - be all I can be...or better, be all that I already am.

Oh scary!!

I Come First, don't I?

A few free hours while R is in town.  I find it odd that I don't sink into solitude with the same ease I used to.  It isn't that I have trouble being alone.  Au contrare!   I value time spent alone, mistress of my thought and action.  The difficulty is lack of practice. 

Just spent an hour reading a book (The Barbed Coil by J. V. Jones).  I used to read for hours at a time.  Now I'm either making busy or I'm on the computer.  At the end of the day, after I've made dinner and my time is my own, I try and read but the tv is on and concentration is off.  Find I have to go back and reread bits to familiarize myself with characters or situations I should already know.  Even now, the call of the computer is strong.  What a blessing and a curse the digital age is.  I'd miss the computer if I didn't have one at the same time as I know how much time I waste clicking away on it.

(Oh no, there's a hare come out in broad daylight - 2pm - to nibble on the flake of lucerne I've put out for the horses.  Jamaica is lazing in the sun, it's another cold and windy day although sunny.  I hope he doesn't see him.  Jamaica's not asleep.  I can see the glint of bright brown eyes.   If he looked 45 degrees NE he'd see the hare.)

In a much better stronger frame of mind than yesterday.  A good nights sleep helps.  Yesterday was the day following the second night of little sleep.  Because I function and get through the day I act as though insomnia doesn't have an affect but of course it does.  I don't think as clearly, I'm more emotional and I mask tiredness with activity. 

(Ah, the hare has had enough and hops away on long strong legs unscathed.  Jamaica dozes on).


Reading on the Rebelle page about the only productive tip a creative sort will ever need.  Do the most important thing first every day.  I'd modify that statement to read:  Find the time to do the most important thing every day. 

I've got up in the dark to take the dogs and myself for a 40 minute walk while the stars shine overhead just to be alone and exercise at the same time.  I've got up an hour earlier, again in the dark, to write 3 pages longhand  while following the Artists Way.  I've got up an hour earlier to do yoga in the dark in front of the fire before work.  Now I get up just before dawn to feed the cats and horses and birds.  Creative acts come later.

One thing I never had to contend with before was responsibility for anyone other than myself.  Yes, I looked after animals, usually a single cat, but with Self as my Motto and Creed, and a cat being a self-sufficient creature it wasn't much of a stretch.  Now, at this late stage of my life, I am having to learn responsibility of and for others.  While still retaining my I Come First credo.  My I Come First credo now has riders; subsections and provisos so it isn't as awful as it sounds. 

But I no longer do the most important thing first thing every day.  It's usually toward the end of the day when I balance the art board on my knees while sitting on the couch with a cat or two and R at the other end. 

Feel like I've been sitting for a month without moving a muscle as far as writing goes.  Writing has been confined to emails and emails do nothing to stretch the creative muscle.  Alas, the creative muscle has been wrapped  and strapped and immobilized.  I thought it had to do with guilt as I procrastinated about calling the RSPCA about some starving horses up the road in hopes the owner, who's quite a friendly soul, would take the hint and do something.  Unfortunately every nicey nicey hint I dropped his way came to nothing.  And then I didn't see him on the road for weeks.  He'd bought a new rig and was working a different schedule.  The dogs and I were wading through grass to try and get a couple of armfuls for this poor gelding.  But whatever I picked was never going to be enough.  Hence the guilt.  Hence the phone call.  Guilt gone!  Surely I'd get some kernel of an idea for a painting/drawing?  Zip. 

So I rang about one horse.  Yesterday I saw three more.  His property is so large that I don't see the different groups for weeks or months.  The property is large but is also completely overgrown with lantana.  The 'good doers' still look good.  Some are so fat it's as though they have been grain fed.  Others are okay, a tiny bit light but still holding their own.  Then there are the vulnerable ones who need that extra help.  One little pinto mare has already died.  I'm sure of it.  I've not seen her for months.  Then there was another bay.  Haven't seen it either.  Yesterday I saw an appaloosa, a brown and a bay in addition to the one I've been picking grass for.  They are all number two on the Horse Body Condition Score (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henneke_horse_body_condition_scoring_system).  And that's very bad.  (Just let Dakota out to eat.  He's probably a 6 or 7 and as such is shut in the yards 17 hours out of 24).

Spent a long time explaining to the RSPCA operator what the property was like, what to look for, how it would be impossible not to see the horse if he wasn't right next to the road.  (Yesterday he nickered when he saw me, as he does, but I couldn't see him.  He was completely hidden by lantana but was only about 20 feet away).  If the horse are not near the road the RSPCA inspector will have no idea how bad things are.  I fed the gelding yesterday but didn't try and feed the others.  The healthy stronger horses push the weaker ones out of the way.  And I can't pick enough grass anyway.  The rhodes grass is too tough to pick by hand and the green panic, due to my harvesting, is getting scarcer. 

But I have to let it go.  I've done all I can.  If I see the owner on the road I'll ask him when he intends to feed them.  Other than that, unless I start buying round bales, there's little I can do.  He has about 17 horses in that paddock and another 7 or 8 (miniatures along with 2 sheep, 2 cows and a horse) in another.  IF he was destitute I'd offer help but money is not the problem.  Apathy and laziness is. 

Anyway, enough.  There's so much cruelty in the world that it is easy to despair.  And forget all the good, the generosity and the beauty. 

There has been a slow insidious sense of time wasting creeping slug like into my everyday every day.  Not in a depressing way.  Suppose it's something every person of a certain age feels.  When I was young I was immortal.  I would live forever and aging was as remote and alien as Centauri II.  Now it looms like the full Harvest moon on a summer night.  So as time dwindles it is imperative that I make the most of what is left.  Of course I waste enormous amounts of time in the usual technology based way.  But I am creating still.  The above is the current picture A Little Bird Told Me.  Needs more work, a lot more work but the gist is there. 

We're all going to die but we all want to be remembered.  There is more Death in anonymity than in death itself.  After my mother died and I was going through her things I found a dozen or so studio portraits of unknown people which were taken in Evanston Indiana.  I have no idea who they were.  They must have been relatives.  Why else have them?  Just Googled Evanston.  It has a population of 715, surely not enough to support a photographic studio.  Still those photos would have been over a 100 years old and perhaps much has changed.  At any rate, there were these unsmiling people in stiff clothing and even stiffer poses.  I threw them away.  The Death in Anonymity. 

People are remembered for a generation or two and then pffft! they disappear.  Is that why there is this unprecedented hunger for fame and fortune?  I say the creativity, the doing, is the thing and I believe it to be so but I also want some small part of me to live on.  I've painted many paintings, given them away, bartered some, sold very few.  Do they still exist?  Do these coloured bits waft tiny molecules of Self in other people's lives?  I don't remember the names of most of the people I gave paintings too - although I can see the paintings quite clearly in my mind's eye.  I think paintings must be like children.  Once born, never forgotten.  One was offered as a prize in a raffle.  I wish I could see it once more. There are favourites, like favourite children.  It was one of them.  It was a very still, very quiet painting of a boat floating in clear water.  That's all but I loved it.  Someone once said my paintings were very quiet.  I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.  Now it doesn't matter. 

I killed a cockroach in the shower the other night and felt terrible.  I get more and more that we are all interconnected and taking the life of another is killing a small part of myself.  In order to destroy life, I must destroy a small part of me that recognises Self in the Other.  Old habits.  The cockroach, not one of the big brown ones but a smaller brown and yellow type, was on the tiles at eye level.  I smashed at it with my fist.  I missed but it dropped to the floor and there, over the 10 minute period of my shower, drowned.  Its small body lay in the corner,  a silent accusatory exclamation point against the white.  I felt really awful.  I don't like cockroaches in the house - or ticks on the horses or fleas on the dogs or mosquitoes biting me.  Despite the regret of the cockroach I crush seed ticks I find on the horses.  One tick caused a large haematoma on Dakota.  I killed it without a second thought.   The Jains of India take the principle of not causing harm to any living being as a principle tenet of their religion.  Every living thing has a soul.  I remember in one of Loren Eiseley's books he tripped on a curb and bloodied himself.  While he was sitting dazed and in pain he spared a thought for the red blood cells which were dying on the concrete.  I can relate to this.  I understand this even as I swat mozzies and crush ticks.  I also carefully release beetles and baby mantis outside.  I'm not evolved enough to be consistent - although I still feel rather sad about that cockroach. 

Cat Boundaries and an Art Habit

I've been mean and closed the door on Natalia. Natalia the Love Biter. The biter of elbows and chin and arm and nose. A purring chainsaw of pain. Natalia of needle sharp claws into my pillow thighs looking for a comfortable position. Natalia the Scamp. Sometimes I just have to say no to the cats. I am not the Chinese Emperor who cut off his sleeve rather than disturb his sleeping companion. No, I pick them up and move them out of the way. I encourage Nairobi to sit beside rather than on me because she makes my legs look like pages of Braille. When Matisse sleeps between the crook of my knee I have no compunction in rolling him to the outside. He weighs a lot. Having Matisse sit on my legs is like being weighed down by a furry boulder.

It has been raining steadily since last night. Although the cats are totally indoor cats, I suspect they get cabin fever when the rain brings the outside inside as a green gloom. I can almost hear them say, 'I'm bored!' Natalia doesn't usually notice whether I'm on the computer or not. She may come in and check out the bird tv through the window or hunt a wild fly on the pane, but sit on my lap? No, she's too busy. But this morning, my lap was a prize to be won despite gentle discouragement. Frankly, if she quickly found a position and went to sleep, no problem but being a rather large cat, she had to twist and turn and try this position and then that, digging claws in to steady herself. I removed her three times. She was like the boor at a party who just doesn't get it that you don't want to hear the fine details of his trip to the dentist. I put her out and shut the door.

Have finished, signed and framed the latest drawing. It's not pretty. It's not logical. But it has presence. It is pencil. A man's bald but beautifully formed head stares through his cupped binocular hands but the hands are joined at the elbow forming a sort of heart shape. Another pair of hands, striped and joined at the wrist form the bottom of the drawing. Massive shadowy shoulders frame the binocular hands. I should (oh, there's that word!) take a photo and try and get it up here but as I've used the word 'should' of course I won't. If I wanted to market my work I'd do so. It's still the work for it's own sake. These walls don't need any more pictures (although I've always admired the shot of Gertrude Stein's Paris salon which was hung with art from ceiling - and high ceilings at that - to floor) but when there's something on the board I breathe more easily. So I keep working.

Have started another work, coloured pencil. One day I sat in the chaise lounge under the poinciana tree and looked up. The sun coming through the branches, the green leaves and the orange-red blooms was a vision that I can never replicate. Yet I have to try. It's odd that artists know they can never truly recreate nature but are compelled to attempt it again and again and again. How frustrating to see the result of hours of work and know that it bears little resemblance to that golden kernel of joy that inspired its creation in the first place. When I looked up through the branches and saw the sky/tree/blossom/sunlight vision, I knew I would have to try. I'm not a plein air painter. I won't take the pad outside and try and copy what I see. I will try (and how impossible and at the same time laughable this is) to recreate the feeling it gave me when I first saw it. What else can I do?

I have copied many things; drawn people from life, copied images from photos, but the paintings which give the most satisfaction are the ones that come from my head. I read of artists who project a photoshopped image onto the canvas and then paint it in. That wouldn't work for me. In one sense it would seem like cheating, a paint by numbers exercise for adults. Trying to recreate the inner life is what interests me, even if it's only my interpretation of an image I've seen and then scrambled with memory and emotion.

My dreams give me no quarter. When I've been slack, and I have been so very slack, my night life reveals the truth though I may day dream my failings away during the daylight hours. Dreamed I was in a wheelchair desperately trying to get out in the rain. Crippled and yearning for aqua vitae which I could not have.

But it's here all the time. Lay in bed this morning (not for long thankfully, this day WILL be better) and thought about the fear factor. I think it plays a part in my meditation and I think it plays a huge part in any creative endeavour and in my life.

What if? What if I let go? What if I really got down and dirty with creativity? What would I have to give up to have it? What lies would have to stop for me to swan dive into the well of Self and record what I found there?

But does it have to be painful and searing and gut wrenching? Just to do. Isn't that all there is? I use the opiates of tv and spider solitaire to keep me dull. Instead of writing, I play. Instead of doing, I watch tv. Hours and hours wasted when I could live. Creativity is not about giving up, it's about giving freely.

So now that's off my chest. My interest in the horses has been reignited by the two days spent at Peter's playing with Monty. Have researched the 4 point trim and sent information about it with a friendly but firm ("I'm very keen to have my horses trimmed this way from now on") to my farrier. Lloyd used it when he was my farrier with great success. It might be the way I can ride Balthazar without having him shod. If not, it will at least put Drifter's feet right. For years now they resemble bedroom slippers; long underslung heels, long toes and flares. If the 4 point trim doesn't work with Balthazar, in that he can work happily on rough surfaces, I will get him some easyboots. Also reaquainted myself with clicker training for horses. Would like to amble about on Balthazar when I feel like a ride without having to 'train'. After years of endurance riding and training I don't want that kind of committment.

Started a painting using the new Van Gogh oil pastels. Huge mistake. Should have used the hard oil pastels first and the soft VGs on top. Now I have this rich buttery layer that won't take any more colour. Going to dig out some turps and use a brush to blend the colours. That should thin it as well. It's not a lost cause. It's a learning process. The painting is derived from a dream image. Spent an hour or more trying to get this particular colour, a orange tinted teal. Didn't get even close. Frustrating as I can see the colour clearly in my imagination.

I've got a greenie staring at me through the window. They know where we are when they want food. Yesterday Suki and Felicity were fighting with two rainbows over the tree holes in the poinciana - out this same window. Went out to 'help' but realized they had to sort it themselves. They are ready to keep house and raise a family. The rainbows are bigger and pugnacious. The greenies didn't stand a chance. We have hung a nest log for them under the gazebo. It's not ideal but it is an option.

Going with the flow.  That's the theme for today.  Being fearless.  While talking to C last night I let slip that I blogged.  We'd been talking about keeping a journal after her trip to Africa.  C wanted the blog address and suddenly I was pacing the kitchen, feeling sweat on my palms.  Honoured but fearful too.  That fear (oh bloody naval watching!) of not being good enough, entertaining enough.  Well, Jeez!  It doesn't matter.  No one holds a gun to anyone's head to force them to read a blog or look at an artwork.  It's the doing of it that counts.  I've been consciously trying to go with the flow, trying to be mindful, to stay in the moment ... to be Open to Life rather than closing down.  Yoga's to blame for that too.  It makes me aware of when I'm holding my breath or breathing shallowly, of when I'm tightening my stomach - as though expecting a gut punch.  No way to live.   It's  terribly sad that I, who have no reason to fear, lives in fear. 

I'd forgotten to record a dream subsequent to the loss of control dream.  Had it the very next night in fact.  It was of a shiny stainless steel structure, huge and irregularly shaped, being built from the ground up.  It was only waist high but it was there, it was mine.  So, grabbing courage from the ether, I'll send C  blog directions and send photos to LVRC art gallery of two works I'd like to enter in the November show. 

When chatting with C last night I spoke of the access to creative people made possible by the internet.  I spoke with envy as well as admiration.  These people are doing things, making things, creating something out of nothing that was not there before.  In a way we are all little gods and goddesses (well, I believe we are all God but that's another post) in that we create every second of every day.  Whether it's a word spoken, a meal made or a hug given.  In the purest sense we are creating our existence moment to moment by the thoughts we think, the things we say and the things we do.  In the essence of that creation, although we may be buffeted by outward circumstance, by the appearance of things that are beyond our control, we remain inviolate, that pure small point of Conscious being.  In other words:  The Conscious Being being. 

The Search for Enlightenment and Creativity

I'm reading Perfect Madness by Donna Lee Gorrell. Very thought provoking book detailing her journey to enlightenment with numerous quotes from zen masters and the like. There is much to be learned from her book yet there is something that doesn't quite ring true - like how should I know as I am far from enlightened? Still, and perhaps it's the innate weakness of the written word which always fails to convey real meaning (describe the colour yellow for instance), there is always this quiet and insistent jangling underlying the text, as if it is written by someone who has done extensive research but doesn't really know the unknowable. I don't know. Maybe it's the cynic or the green eyed monster (I'll have what she's having). Maybe it's just guilt as I've done nothing creative or constructive in weeks. My book languishes on the hard drive. I haven't even looked at it. I'm not painting or drawing anything. I read, play with Dimitri and hide from the dust (a second dust storm swept through yesterday and everything is again covered with a reddish brown film). It's self-disgust- such a useless emotion except when it gets to be too much one is finally motivated to get off one's arse and do something. Ah, notice how I went from using the word 'I' to the word 'one'? A quick and easy way to distance myself from aspects I don't like about myself. Okay, so when it gets to be too much I am finally motivated to get off my arse and do something. Much better. I'm not meditating either despite many opportunities to do so. What is this self-defeating system that I believe I share with many other people. Lack of self-discipline? Perhaps but I suspect it stems from fear. Not doing anything means I'm not putting myself out there. I can't fail because I haven't tried. Each time my days off roll around I swear it will be different. I'll get stuck in; write, paint, meditate, do yoga, all the things that make me feel better for having done them. And then I disappoint myself. It is easy to stay busy with housework and things that appear to be constructive but are really empty. Creativity is akin to God (I still have trouble with that word, that concept - I like the Power That Is, The Source, etc. but they are wordy). God created the world and the universe and God created me with the ability to create. Isn't that a terrific gift? The most marvelous gift - and I sit on it and do nothing.
I work with a kid once a week who is in a band. A heavy metal band. This school holiday he and his mates are putting together a clip to put on You Tube. We were talking about it and he said I probably wouldn't like his type of music. I said he was probably right but that didn't matter. The most important thing was he was making something with his friends that hadn't existed before. They were creating something totally new. Each of us has wisdom to share or we teach best what we most need to learn. So on that note, I'm going to go do something creative even if it's just a pencil sketch of Dimitri leaning into this dusty dry wind.