Monday 24 September 2012

Finding focus

In and out of phase Beam me up, Scotty: there's no intelligent life down here.

I continute to have more and more days when I'm in phase, and the changes I spoke about in my last posting just four days ago, grow exponentially. Part of it is work-related: I'm here, halfway through a three-week artist residency, and while I'm getting the project done, I'm also knitting something mindful, writing in my journal, and talking long walks almost every day.

Stay or go? Monarch butterfly at the beach, Sandbanks Provincial Park

Apart from the fresh air, and the opportunity to see a different landscape of trees and birds, I mostly spend the time thinking. One of the major issues I had with the project sort of took over most of the time for most of the first week, and a productive day in the studio yesterday to build a quick model, and then transfer that knowledge to the actual piece, means I can now move on.

Is this my good side? #2 Semipalmated sandpiper

I find the architecture -- classic southern Ontario houses and public buildings -- to be an endless source of wonder: red brick houses, yellow brick churches, the shire office here in the county, most dating to the latter half of the nineteenth century, are rampant. Not sure why I haven't been photographing them, except perhaps that they are only uncommonly elegant to someone like me, seeing them with fresh eyes.

Circle of life All washed up.

Regular readers may recall that in my Septemtember 2 post, I talked about letting go of some of the crutches I had started to lean on in the last eighteen months. When I wrote those words, barely three weeks ago, my best guess would have been that that process would have begun slowly once I got back to Calgary at the beginning of November.

But I've started doing some of it already, and in some ways, I almost feel that now that I've begun, I can't wait to do more of it. Somehow, that emotional entropy has been dashed away in the swirl of everything else that's happening.

Basking Somewhere up a lazy river, a turtle is basking.

It's not unlike the feeling of sitting around a cluttered home, not knowing where to even begin to clean up, but then fixing just one corner. Aha! you think this is way easier than I thought it would be! and then before you know it, there's bags of garbage, a full recycling bin, a shredder that's over-heated, and the place is unrecognizably tidy.

You'll notice I said "tidy" and not "clean": there's a difference. "Clean" is still a really big ask: give me some time on that one, OK?

Green heron Green heron by the waterside.

I am reminded, for the first time in awhile, about Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach. It's been out-of-print for a long time, and I know my copy is stashed away in a box in storage, but I take solace in having this PDF version to read while I'm on the road.

Physically, I have been drifting for months, but emotionally, I've just caught a strong current on the great crystal river.

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