DON’T ASK
Here, in the midst of social distancing and isolation where time speeds by slowly, and distorts one’s perception of the future, I sometimes feel as if my brains are leaking out and becoming something like gnarly gnats only more passive aggressive. Those things I ought to do but don’t, those projects partly started and never undertaken, those good intentions murdered by inertia, all these and more of the same, curl around endlessly and nag at me. But as they drift about in their naggy dance of do-me-do-me-do they leave me free to tap into new rhythms of thought.
Like my hair that has run amok, and is growing out of control, my thought process has become wild, beautiful and beyond my grasp. Crystal drops of images appear in a flash of clarity, only to disappear as new thoughts gallop over old stone walls and hide the quarry. But, I have learned to live the life of a sneak thief, that I might capture those elusive thoughts and images … that I might discover the creative magma that boils below an old carapace of control. In some strange alchemy of fate and circumstance I have, now and again, caught sight of the power that artistic expression can achieve when released from old expectations. Or maybe it is just the old devil moon howling at me. Maybe it is best that I don’t ask.
3 Replies to “DON’T ASK”
the bubbling visceral redness -love the creative magma!
How much is that painting, Connie? I LOVE IT!!!
Oh I do so enjoy your writings. You have certainly pretty darned accurately described much of my own condition (many of us really) though I’ve been getting sod all done on the ‘creative’ canvasses. Although some semi-arty-farty ideas, part-way to fruition in various rooms: there’s my Hat Tree – beech branches have been lying across our front hall for about ten days – they were standing in position a couple of weeks before that – waiting for me to finish the painting and work out a way to anchor them; there’s the Shell Bathroom…about three feet of shells are stuck up but walls and things are only part=painted. The Grey Room poetic mural is at this point and for about six weeks, is mere experimental blobs of colour testing. As for the Four-Poster Bedroom and the drawing room – well, a maniac has left paint daubed on assorted walls for consideration in the former and in the latter, a minor explosion of stuff from the hall, and an awful lot else in boxes, piles, on tables, on the floor. Sort of pre-auction chaos without the auction, or ‘where will we put this, eventually’ indecision ‘I know, in a new basket, in that corner’ has been the trend….not to mention the daubings of paint for the process of many months, ‘which colour of the many blobs will I actually make a decision on soon…any time this year would be good’. At least I have narrowed things down on the paint manufacturers: Dulux and Colourtrend. The latter generally favoured these days.
Now it is late and I must ‘awah tae the straw sack and blankie’ but having not done anything about promoting you recently, nor followed through with posting your Chili story, you have been on my mind. The introduction to such intended post has been half-dreamingly composed out on my strolls, or in my garden phases and I have also had a peek at your lovely masks, et cetera. Ooooh! Wondering just how long they would take to arrive from Amerikay? Was recommending them to a mother and child this evening, when I saw them coming by as I was watering our window boxes. I’d asked if there might be an interest from her daughter and other children (perhaps more interest from the parents for a child break) for some walking and sketching with me soon. We’re still a little confused on the mask or not to mask – though I see a few around town. Yours are much more attractive.
OK. Am tired – ‘tis time for bed. But if I could get one ickle job part-done, I’d feel the day wasn’t yet another total doss, here in the Centre of The Universe. BTW, I have today, for the second time had the most wonderful experience of being in the gardens, all Spring-Summer blossomed, all on my own. There was apparently another, but we never met. It was heaven!
Rosalind xx
HUGS across the Atalanticus, dear Connie!
Rosalind
I love this. It actually made my heart jump when I first saw it. Weird.
Carol