Funny, the things you miss.

Things that don’t even seem to be in one’s recall, but somewhere in the archives of our feelings they sit there—waiting for us to notice.

I was cleaning out a storage space in my studio last week and happened upon a couple of framed prints. They were two of my first fully digital creations, and the first two pieces I had tried my hand at framing. In the years since, different prints of both pieces have been framed more professionally (again by me, after getting some framing education), in a style suitable for gallery showing.

The show pieces were well received and those that didn’t sell came home and adorned my walls. They looked fine and I didn’t think much more about it. In the ensuing years, some more of the pieces were sold, one was loaned and the walls developed bare spaces that I noticed now and again. But I was busy.

So, when I found those aging, less than perfect, dusty examples of my work I was delighted. I sure wasn’t too busy to dust them off and go park them on the naked picture hooks still punctuating my balding walls.

It was nice to see them out in the light again, but that wasn’t what really stuck me. It was the sound that pulled me up short and resonated a warm chord in my heart. I had completely forgotten how they sound.

The ‘gallery’ style framings I had done were glazed with standard window glass. But in my first framings, I had used a type of acrylic glazing.

And acrylic glazing flexes a lot more than glass as the environment around it changes. And when it flexes, it can make a wonderful light percussive sound, a bit similar to the sound a clock pendulum makes.

The sound is not metered of course, but it is not really random either. As the day warms and cools, sunlight filters in and moves on, or the rain falls saturating the air the acrylic glazing responds with a tick here and a tock there.

The sounds of these two images are soothing, reassuring, and delightful to me. The sounds remind me of the earliest days of my career move to full time art & writing, they remind me of furniture and pets that used to be, and they make me smile as I recall trying to figure out where those sounds were coming from when I first hung the pieces.

Mostly though, the sound of each print reminds to pay attention.

Reminds me that surprising things can come from very unexpected sources, and the sounds remind me of my history—which somehow fills me with a sense of wonder and joy about my today. I can’t explain that last bit, but I am endlessly grateful for the gift.

Today is the only today that I get and anything that helps me pay attention to it is nothing short of manna from heaven.

~

May you have a wonderful today - each and every day.

~

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~

a stone rolled down a steep embankment. it was the size of a small child’s fist, and was the color of ruddy-brown bricks with gently sparkling patches of ebony here and there over its surface. on top of the embankment all the stones looked pretty much this way.

the small stone landed in the ditch below the embankment unharmed. the stone looked around and saw that all the stones here in the ditch were colored yellow caramel-brown. and there were not so many stones here as above. the stone tried to say hello to one of the stones nearest but the odd colored ditch stone did not answer.

after a couple of days the embankment stone felt lonely. and in its want of companionship it came up with an idea. the embankment stone surmised that no one was speaking to it because it looked so different. so the stone rolled and rolled and rolled and rolled so it was covered with the dirt from the ditch. and this worked just as planned. covered in dirt, the embankment stone looked quite a bit like all the other stones in the ditch.

soon after this, one of the ditch stones tumbled by. the ditch stone asked the embankment stone if it had noticed what had happened to the beautiful newcomer with the shiny black spots. the embankment stone delightedly replied ‘oh yes, I am that stone. I rolled down from above.’ and the ditch stone laughed and laughed saying ‘silly, you are just the same as us all.’

the ditch stone rolled away tittering. the embankment stone could hear the sniggering from the other ditch stones as the story of their conversation was told and retold. the embankment stone felt even more lonely then. and try as it might no matter how it rolled or scooted, the dirt covering it stayed firmly in place. it had done a great job with its camouflage.

so many lonely days passed that the embankment stone lost count. all the ditch stones made a wide path clear of it in their rolling about the ditch. sometimes the stone heard whispers of ‘crazy’ and ‘dangerous’ as the rough shaped ditch stones went by at a distance. for a while the stone tried to say hello when new stones came near. but no one ever answered and at last it gave that up too.

the sun was high and hot for most of the time and the pale-brown dirt now covering the embankment stone felt permanently baked on. and sometimes, for just a moment, the stone forgot what it really was underneath.

and then dark clouds came. and the rain fell so hard the stone could not see if it was night or if it was day. and when the sun finally broke through the clouds, the embankment stone was washed clean and gleaming.

and in its surprised happiness, the stone began to call out. the stone called to the ditch stones. asked them to look and see what had happened. to look and see that it had been telling the truth all along.

but only quiet returned the calls of the stone. and so the stone took its view away from itself and looked in every direction—finding there was no stone anywhere in sight. the rain that had so splendidly washed the stone clean, brought it home to itself, had washed the ditch stones entirely away.

~

inspired in part by the SES prompt: falling slowly

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a paradigm of opening
part 1, part 2,
part 3,  part 4

~

And he let it all go.

Embraced fully the smooth wave roll into a perfect backstroke of enveloping sleep.

He sank first into a sound—melodic warble of a baritone pitched flute that resonated, surrounded, permeated the whole of him.

And then gradually came a visual accompaniment.

Soft lavender and peach hues emerging, merging, and reemerging in myriad shapes. Ever evolving into new patterns while still unified in a radiant choreography.

All the while - a somewhat enigmatic verse slowly unfolded and repeated. The words appearing and then fading, swimming in languid strokes amongst the color and sound.

the cloud is a part
of the paper
surely as is the tree
surely as is the air you exhale
surely as is the ground on which you walk
inextricable you are
from the paper
and cloud
as all things
are inextricable
from all things
existence of one
impossible without
the other
each being, each thing
intertwined
individual drops
comprising the same ocean

Dreaming thus, his body and mind slept in great peace and breathed-in renewal, until it was time for him to wake once again.

~

—
inspired in part by the SES prompt ‘let it go‘ and the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh
—

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—
a paradigm of opening
part 1, part 2, part 3
—

~

And so he took a short step forward. And then another. As he relaxed, his stride naturally began to stretch out and become full.

On the third step his right knee came up and bumped something. He reached up with both hands and found that he was nearly nose tight to a wall. Could he have turned 90 degrees and run into the wall beside him?

That hardly seemed possible, but here in the darkness he was ready to believe almost anything. He took two full steps back, reached his arms out directly in front of him, and walked slowly forward.

Sure enough, his hands again met the wall his knees had bumped. Could the hallway have changed when he passed the lighted door?

As he began to ponder this, he moved to relax his arms and sensed something to his left.

(more…)

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—
a paradigm of opening
part 1 - part 2
—

~

He froze in place, cursing the dense black around him.

But maybe all was not lost. He moved backward taking two small careful steps, then reached out, trying to find the doorknob.

His left knuckles ran uncomfortably into the wall, and he cursed again. Figured he must have made his backwards steps too small, so he shuffled back two more small steps.

He was more careful about reaching his hand out this time, but encountered the wall once again. How could the door not be there? He was sure no more than a minute had elapsed since he initially passed by the threshold. And now, the door had apparently vanished.

He stood still for a moment to gather his wits and contemplate his options.

His heart was pounding. Hard. Enough so, that his head began to ache, and he took a few deep breaths to try to calm himself. And in those moments as he fought the panic attempting to overtake him, he remembered something Melinda used to say. He recalled how she would often remind him that people create a great many challenges in their lives simply out of fear of the unknown. That if fear could be set aside, a great gift of clarity would be revealed. Most things, once met face on, were far less frightening than our imaginings of them.

And this was certainly a large helping of unknown, and he was certainly afraid as he stood there in the indeterminate blankness. But thinking of Melinda’s voice helped him relax just a bit, enough to relieve the pain in his head and allow him to think more clearly. He was able to move his fear off to the side, and focus on the situation at hand.

Realistically, his options were few, but he did have options. He could continue going backwards and see if he could find the mirror, then make his way back into the original hallway. He could stand there hoping that a light would come on somewhere so he could see what was going on, or he could walk forward and encounter whatever was in front of him—if there was anything there beyond the apparent emptiness.

Melinda’s voice again came into his memory and he thought of those days when she was leaving. How he had asked her why they could not just forget his proposal and move back into the comfortable place they had known. He assured her he would never broach the marriage topic again.

He remembered telling her that he didn’t need her to be his wife, that he really had been happy as things were, and he most wanted to just go back to that. He had asked her to think about it. Begged her to sleep on it. Told her that maybe tomorrow she would see things differently, see that he was being sincere.

But she had looked long into his face, and then just smiled. She told him that life only moved in one direction. That is was impossible to go back, impossible to not be where they were, impossible to not know what they already knew, impossible to not move forward and follow the unfolding path in front of them.

Only forward. She had said that life moves in a single direction, only forward. He hadn’t really understood that at the time—oh, he understood all the words, but he thought she was just being stubborn, and more than a little bit condescending. He even thought she was being deliberately cryptic and that she was trying to shame him for not knowing these things.

But right now, he thought maybe he understood at least some of what she was trying to say. He felt bad that he hadn’t tried harder to understand her at the time, that he had been so suspicious of her motives.

For whatever reason, it made sense to him now. It felt true. Something almost physical resonated deep in his belly as he realized that life really did only move in one direction and moving forward now, was clearly the only choice.

~

—
inspired in part by the SES prompt - ‘maybe tomorrow‘
—

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—

a paradigm of opening
part 1

—

~

He crept slowly. Wondering about his choice.

It was not like him to be rash.

To wander off in the dark without a light—particularly when there were other options.

He avoided risks. Sometimes, even when that meant doing nothing.

He thought about all the standing still he had done. Began to wonder about those choices.

But he wasn’t standing still now. He was shuffling in the dark. Inexplicably believing it was the right choice.

He stopped for a moment to glance over his shoulder and was surprised at how far he had walked.

The mirror was now a distant pastel blur. He could no longer tell if it was pulsing or not.

He recalled the welcoming ebb of the mirror’s light and felt a renewed sense of rightness in his direction.

He was surprised to find he could no longer see the un-chosen hallway. He had expected to see its light still glowing, offering him the potential to turn back.

And he though for a moment, about the corridor that brought him to the mirror. How its doors had gone dark as he passed by them. And for a brief sweep of the second hand, he felt there was something quite important about those darkened doors, but he could not quite grasp what it was. As quickly as the feeling had visited it slipped from his awareness.

Then abruptly, his mind filled with thoughts of Melinda. How gentle she had been. How plainspoken and direct. How grateful she was for even the smallest ray of sunshine amidst the clouds. How easily she laughed, and cried.

He remembered his proposal. How sure he had been in their pending life together.

He remembered her long faraway gaze before she said she could not.

She had said the two of them were not in the same place.

He remembered how he did not understand what she had meant. He knew she loved him. That was clear. And he loved her—which was obvious also.

But she said she did not know how to explain any better. Said it simply wasn’t right, that it was not on her path. Which he did not understand either.

And he remembered her leaving. How he had wanted to go with her wherever she was going. How he vowed it would not matter where, as long as they were together.

But she had told him she could not take him. No one could. Told him that her path now was turning a different direction from his. That he must continue on his journey as she must hers.

He tried to understand. Even pretended that he did. But all he understood was that she was leaving.

He wondered why he should think of all that now. In the middle of this confusing corridor. Now, while he was tring to make some sense of where he was and where he was going.

He looked up to see a nearby door radiating the compelling colored light, and all thoughts of Melinda quickly faded.

His steps were still careful, but he hastened just a bit. The colors from the transom and door knob were casting a pale light-pool into the hallway.

He hoped the pool would illuminate more of the hallway so he could see where he was headed.

As he neared the door, its light emanation grew more intense.

He felt a flicker of warm invite. This puzzled him and he slowed.

He stepped into the light-pool and felt a strong desire to reach out his left hand and open the door.

But he could not do that. He had no idea what was in there.

And the lighted handle might even be dangerous. Hot. Or charged with electricity.

No, he could not risk it. There was clearly no one here to help him. So he fixed his eyes on looking forward.

Just as he’d hoped, the pool of light had grown bright enough for him to glimpse the corridor beyond.

There was another door a bit further along and to his right. Its transom and knob were dark.

He again felt a deep wanting to open the door beside him. He turned to look at it, the knob pulsing colors in sequence.

But he needed to look forward. The light almost reached the threshold of the unlit door.

That looked safer. At that door, maybe he would try the normal looking knob.

He began to move on. Careful to keep to the center of the hall.

The moment his back foot passed completely by the frame of the radiant doorway, the transom and knob colors disapeared.

Immersing him in the dark.

~

—

inspired in part by the SES prompt “take me with you”

—

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