Okay so i just stumbled upon this video while I should be doing other very important work things mind you. But had to post for a little extra food for thought as you head into the weekend. I am visual by nature so The Time you Have (in Jelly Beans) spoke to me. Enjoy!
So I’m taking Monday off and getting out of town for a night. Treating myself to some solitude, a great dinner and a soak in a giant tub. I plan to spend the day traipsing around with my camera, visiting an artist loft, and having my Tarot cards read. Perhaps this little etude will relieve some of my stress. We shall see.
But first it’s Harry Connick in concert with my friend DT and her hubby. She is a founding member of the Thinking Girl’s Man Board of Directors. Harry is of course a member of TGM because he is indeed proof that hope floats.
I told DT that together she and I are DT². Her response was, “yes we are double Trouble”. She said once it was too bad we had not met when we were younger. But I think age is what allowed us to identify and value true friendship when it arrived.
Still no shed, but my roommates son is about to rescue me from my lackadaisical madness. Soon I will quit updating you since it will be finished. I’m feeling optimistic and desperate.
There were a few people who struck me this week. Here are the pieces of wisdom I obtained.
First up was Jeff Goins . In his newsletter he wrote about the importance that your medium match your message. He said “I wrote a book about slowing down and being present, and now I’m working myself to the bone to promote it.” He was troubled by the inherent inconsistency. A friend asked him if he was undermining the integrity of his message by how he was promoting it.
This past weekend my own mentor and teacher gave me this same lecture. I was stressing out about everything I needed to accomplish over the weekend- laundry, shopping, client sketches, read reviews. All the busyness we mistake for importance. I was simply creating anxiety inside myself, becoming immobilized, not wanting to start any of them. She told me to either get up and get to them or simply stop and be present to the moment, to talking to her over coffee. I decided it was foolish to let anything get in the way of what I value most in life, my relationships. So I dropped all my tension and just enjoyed our morning until I was ready to hop up and tackle the day. How does this apply to Jeff Goins message? Well as Jeff typed away at his newsletter his son kept climbing into his lap hitting the caps lock to see the green light flash on. Which only made his work take longer. He wanted to be upset with his son. Instead he remembered that life isn’t a distraction from art. Life is the reason he does it in the first place. If you ask me, those are words for any artist to live by.
Next came watching a video on Chase Jarvis’s Blog of Dan Wieden of Wieden + Kennedy agency speaking at a conference. You must watch the entire video. There is so much to gain from it. But here is a simple excerpt to wet your whistle.
“Our most valuable assets as individuals and as agencies and as a society is our ability to lead a Creative Life; a life that not only can adapt to change, but hopefully influence the direction, rate and temperament of that change.
Any life worth living begins with confusion and returns to that confusion again and again. The trick is to feel at home in that uncertainty, and allow a new pattern a new approach to unfold. This seems to be true on the smallest of scales and the largest.”
Last was from a fellow writer over at the writer’s cafe. He writes such unabashedly romantic poems like an open heart bleeding itself onto the page. The mix of airy dreamer and melancholy realities intertwined. When I read his work I find my own heart beating inside his lines making it impossible for me to deny my own romantic nature. One I have worked hard to repress deny, squash, mature (take your pick). They call it hopeless for a reason. But he wrote “Tonight…I hide no truth in chameleon feelings” and ” I want to fall for you. Do you feel hallow?” Hence my public admission.
Another poem of his about sitting upon the back porch conjured an on-slot of memories. Here are but a few.
Cricket song is one of my favorite sounds along with bellowing frogs and rain on a roof. They conjure the twinkle of fireflies in the evening sky.
Songs do linger in silence. They hang in the air like sentient memory of a time since past. Like a whiff of my grandmother’s perfume. In a flash I am transported back to nights spent as she braided my hair and sang sweet music in my ear.
The first time I ran away from home I was 4. I pack my things and headed far far away….to our back porch where I decided I would live forever. Forever turned out to be a few hours.
The thing about being ” bitten by love bugs, disguised in sweet essence” is they can leave a permanence you can’t shake even after there are gone. It is like an imprint on your soul.
“An actor delivering lines where love needs punctuation.” As a theater major I will say that you can’t truly play any role without infusing bits of who you are into the character, into the moment, into the place. And when you do that you are forever changed, melded a little.
So I love poetry for everything it awakens in the author as well as the reader. But ultimately this is what I love about art in general. Now Sami is also a wordsmith. I could create a weekly blog post dedicated to the new and interesting vocabulary I learn while reading his work. This week’s words were Umbral & Facula. Look em up.
Make sure you check out the Blast from this Blogs Past below. She is a friend and very talented artist. Till Monday….
Harry Connick Jr. – Let’s Just Kiss
DCTdesigns Creative Canvas 
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