Oil on canvas, February 2009.

This theme’s been surrounding me lately, that life is about flow.  Best to be like water, or the river that runs with and through everything.

Four days til 29.

Deep breaths.

Pastel on paper, 2002

Reading this piece on creativity in relation to age made me understand something critical and validating about my own creative process..

I always thought I was brash and rash, that I painted/created spontaneously, intuitively, based on instinct…so I thought I’d fall under the first set–the conceptualists. But reading more, I realized I’m actually more of an experimentalist, like Cezanne, who was a “late-bloomer”: …

creativity in slow dosesRead More »

Gouache on paper, 2002

There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap. — Cynthia Heimel

Gouache on handmade paper, unfinished

Prince Lir: A happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story.

Molly Grue: But what if there isn’t a happy ending?

Schmendrick: There are no happy endings, because nothing ends.

– The Last Unicorn.

Watercolor and poster paint on paper, October 2009

Gouache and watercolor on paper, 2009

“You are not surprised at the force of the storm–
You have seen it growing
…

Now you must go out into your heart
as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins
…
The days go numb, the wind
sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves.

Through the empty branches the sky remains.
It is what you have…”

– Rilke’s Book of Hours II,1

Gouache on paper, 2006

“Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.” — Seneca

I love this! What a way to start a Saturday morning!
The words Seneca used:

BEGIN
Such potency, such motivation in that word. BEGIN, my friends! let’s! 🙂

AT ONCE
The time is now, focus on now. What are you waiting for, really?

TO LIVE
Just like a chair chairs, a person persons. We live, and so we be who we’re meant to be — we ripen and blossom and bear fruit…

and do the same thing over again EACH DAY. Separate day = separate life.

Wonderful! Tara let’s, bagets, forget all your troubles, forget all your cares… and go Downtown
(things will be great when you’re
Downtown — you’ll find a place for sure
Downtown — everything’s waiting for you)!

HAHA, happy day, friendlies XOXO

*     *     *

Sent as email to friends on September 15,  2007.

Gouache on paper, 2002

My waterloo has always been patience.. I’ve always found it hard to believe in the “calculated jump” in actualizing a dream: what people call baby steps or weighing out options.. I find taking one’s time to be a great deterrent; it paralyzes. For me, when you jump, you jump. All out. Bahala na si batman.   And so far, this structureless, armalite approach has worked for me..

Last year, though, I learned something about patience..and restraint…and all their wonderful, painful offspring. A difficult lesson (we stubborn girls don’t learn otherwise), but maybe impactful in a way I am only beginning to understand..

What does it mean to wait? Cris told me years ago that women, by nature, wait. It’s what we do.  I refused the idea then, because waiting seemed so passive, reactionary, weak.  And what could be more truthful than acting on gut?

But there is a steady power to it… to waiting without going insane… to letting things unfold, to not thinking too much, to welcoming the silence and (seeming) inaction that come with the wait.

“To let each impression and each embryo of a feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own understanding, and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: this alone is what it means to live as an artist: in understanding as in creating.”                                    – Rilke, in Letters to a Young Poet

…

on waitingRead More »

Gouache on paper, 2003

The occasional gathering…no matter how brief, keeps the heart and mind in touch with the most fundamental of joys: belonging.   – Adrian Butash

Nothing beats face-to-face encounters.

If I were to add up the number of hours I spend on emails, Facebook, Multiply, and Friendster everyday versus time spent on quality meet-ups with real people, ayayay, shame shame on me… admittedly I’ve relied on the net to stay in touch with friends because it’s convenient — it requires less of my time and lets me do other things…

Multitasking is so natural now, it doesn’t make sense to do things the long way… but really, time is all we have to give. We don’t choose our friends out of convenience, and a quick review of the qualities of a great friend would definitely have reliability/availability at the top of the list.

For the things we love, we make time, we clear our schedule, we plan. Why not for the people we love? I think the happiest people are also those who can say no to things that matter only slightly and yes to those that warm the heart every single time.

Christmas is less than a month away, friends! Time again to gather and be joyful, hope to share real hugs with you soon! XOXO

*     *     *

First emailed this to friends on November 28, 2007.  Synchronicity at work to chance upon it the same time of the year two years later?  Must listen to these gentle reminders…and listen well… 🙂