Archives for category: art and the artist

I am sipping a really terrible coffee, looking out over the ocean at low tide. Funny, I’m in the room right next to the room I had on my last visit here…but the view is diminished (one window instead of three side-by-side), and the coffee is terrible. My results vary. Yours will, too, most likely. It’s a very human experience.

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

Low tide, sunrise, western horizon.

I’m still drinking the coffee, as terrible as it is. I’ll go out for better, later, but for now this will do. I am still enjoying the view from this room. It’s beautiful. No complaints, and no need to journey elsewhere to see the sea. Surely, I’ll see more, and from other viewpoints, later today, but for now this is quite enough. This room is somehow smaller than the one next door (and no kitchenette, just a coffee machine and a mini-fridge). Doesn’t much matter; I’m not here about the amenities, I’m here to relax with my thoughts and reset myself, my thinking, and my approach to the day-to-day, hoping to come home feeling refreshed and energized, and somehow more myself than when I got here.

…Will that work? Maybe? It has before…

Here on the seashore I feel my Dear Friend’s presence and my Granny’s. Both women loved coastal places. Whenever I was low, talking with my Granny on the phone from some distant place, she would say “You should come to the shore, Sweetie, and take a rest from all that. It’s just noise in your head. Come listen to the birds, and feel the breeze on the marsh. We’ll take a drive into town and have crab cakes.” I’d often laugh, just feeling relieved to be heard. I couldn’t go as often as I would have liked, but on those occasions that I did, it saved me.

I sip my terrible cup of coffee, marveling at just how really awful it is. The morning sun begins to light up the distant clouds, high in the sky. Beautiful. A seagull stands on the bit of ground between the window and the straight drop to the beach, and looks into the window at me. The ocean is a sleek polished aluminum gray, breaking on the rocky beach in waves of white foam, shining with reflected light. I could sit at this window and watch this views for many uninterrupted hours – even with this gull standing there watching me, as if expecting I might toss some tasty morsel his way. It is windy today (yesterday, too), and it’s expected to be rainy, too. I don’t even mind. Storms make for dramatic skies, and rain means a good night’s sleep (for me).

I sigh to myself. This coffee is even worse once it’s begun to go cold. I chuckle to myself. It’s a good indication that it’s time to begin again, perhaps? The tide is as its lowest, and the tide pools here are something special. My clothes are already laid out. A walk on the beach, then a proper cup of coffee sounds like a lovely start to the day. I let go of my expectations; there is no sense in clinging to what I do not yet know. I already know that change is, and that my results may vary. I’m walking my own path, and that’s enough for this moment right here, now.

I finish this coffee, and think kisses at my Traveling Partner. He’s having his own experience – I hope it is a good one.

I got well along on my way this morning, heading for my favorite local trail for a morning walk, before I realized I’d somehow forgotten to put in my hearing aids. I didn’t pause or reconsider my plan; generally speaking, if I am alone anyway, I don’t really need them. The chronically vexing tinnitus isn’t improved by the hearing aids in any notable way, and my hearing impairment is limited to a handful of voice frequencies, mostly. It’s fine. It’s human and I’m okay with it.

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

…AI doesn’t “hear” sounds, “see” sights, or actually think about anything at all. It’s a very elaborate Mad Libs completion tool. I smile as I walk. I am having this experience. I see the gray stormy looking sky and wonder what the weather will be like. I don’t check and I’m not looking for an answer. I’m just having this experience and enjoying this moment. It’s enough. I walk on, grateful for this messy weird human life wrapped in a fragile, fallible, meat suit with an unknown expiration date.

A slime mold in my garden.

This morning I spotted a slime mold in my garden. There’s not much more to say about that. There it was, yellow and a little gross looking, but harmless as far as I know, and it will live out it’s life over days and be gone. It will live its own moment, and have its own experience. I wonder, as I walk, what the life of a slime mold is like from the perspective of the slime mold?

“Emotion and Reason” 18″ x 24″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic and glow. 2012

The Spring air smells of flowers. Roses and other sweet grassy and floral scents mingle. The air is still. Feels like it might rain today. Another thing AI doesn’t have; emotions and sensations. “Feelings”. I feel the possibility of rain in the specific type, location, and intensity of arthritis pain in my body. I feel a complicated mixed emotion of mostly anticipation, annoyance, and discomfort. Very human. This whole “human” thing has a lot of potential for profound joy (and sorrow) and feelings have to be felt – experienced – to be understood. Anything else is a facsimile (or, not even that). I can, for example, talk about the experience of motherhood, but without having experienced that myself, my words have little to offer, really. (This is also true of men writing about being women; without the lived experience, they are only observers.)

I walk awhile with my thoughts. Pretty random stuff on a Tuesday morning. I am in more pain than usual and distracting myself with my musings.

What a strange world. We don’t know what we don’t know. We’re each having our own experience. We all seem to assume everyone around us understands the world based on the same lived experience we ourselves are having. Super weird. Very human. Even the very green blades of grass along this trail may look quite different to us as individuals, and we somehow manage to share an understanding of “grass”. We are such complex and beautiful creatures. I sit with my thoughts awhile.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I have a vague sense that I was going somewhere with this, at some point… Now I’m just sort of indulging my wandering mind. I’m okay with that; the daydreams and the flights of fancy of a wandering mind are often the spark that sets ablaze an inferno of inspiration, for me. Maybe for you, too? When was the last time you simply sat with your thoughts? No phone, no screen in front of your eyes, no music playing, no “content” being consumed – just you and your thoughts and your lived experience? Worth doing.

I let the clock tick on for a little while, listening to birds and peeping frogs, and somewhere in the distance the hum and whir of HVAC. I sit considering the far distant future. If AI were to outlast humanity by some bizarre circumstance, and was asked to describe humanity…it would get so much so very wrong; it would have no lived experience by which to understand us. I hope our books and our art survive. I hope we do, too; we’re messy and weird, and violent and sometimes stupid, but we live and love and make beautiful art… I’d like to see us endure and grow into something better than we are.

I sigh to myself and get to my feet. I’m grateful to live this human experience, flaws and fears and pain and mistakes and all. I’m grateful for the opportunity to feel and experience love. I’m grateful to taste delicious food and to smell the flowers in my garden. I’m grateful to feel the trail under my feet and the breeze in my hair. I’m grateful to see the many hues of green and even to wonder if you see them as I do. I’m grateful to love and to feel my beloved Traveling Partner’s arms around me. I’m grateful for this moment, and I’m grateful to begin again, every morning, with a new day, a blank page.

What are you going to do about it?

Today is my anniversary with my Traveling Partner; 16 years together, a bit more, and 15 married. As long-term relationships go, it’s not exactly “a lifetime” – I’ve had to try a few times to “get it right”. This anniversary is a major milestone for a minor reason; it is my longest long-term relationship.

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

My next longest long-term relationships (14 years together, never actually married, and another that was 14 years married, but only 10 of those together) were problematic extensions of traumatizing models of “family life” I’d dearly like to erase from memory, but for the fact that my path through the chaos and damage eventually brought me here. I wouldn’t change a moment if it might mean missing out on the love I’ve found with my Traveling Partner.

“Communion” 2010

So here I am, walking as the sun rises, smiling and hearing love songs in my head. We have dinner plans tonight, and I’m excited about that. I haven’t gotten him a gift. I don’t know how to give a gift worthy of a love like this one on the limited budget I would have. Dinner together at the best restaurant in the area seems fitting. (His idea, which tickles me so much.)

“Contemplation” 12″ x 16″ acrylic and iron oxide. August 2011

Is love “enough”? I walk and think about that question and find myself answering “enough for what?” before shrugging off the question as irrelevant to my lived experience of love and loving. Love is love. Questions of sufficiency seem to lead down a path of price tags and comparisons and cost/benefit analysis, and that seems foolish. Love doesn’t have to be “enough” to fulfill some other purpose, it is enough to experience love, ever. I get to my halfway point, still smiling and feeling lighthearted. It’s a beautiful morning, and I am fortunate to be in love.

“Cherry Blossoms” 2011

I breathe, exhale, and relax. Meditation is difficult this morning. I fidget like a child in church, restless, excited. My mind wanders (don’t forget to pick up your Rx, don’t forget your manicure appointment, don’t forget to double-check the grocery list and stop by the store…). S’ok. It’s a very human experience. Most people don’t notice my brain damage; little glitches in the background, unusual difficulties with communication, oddball “quirks” that are actually coping mechanisms for getting around “thinking holes” and shit that just doesn’t work the way it should. I’m used to it, mostly. I’ve improved a lot over the years (so much). My Traveling Partner sees more of it than most people – and manages to be kind, loving, and generally very supportive, without succumbing to the potential temptation to exploit me to his advantage. (Not true in previous relationships, one of which apparently had exploitation as it’s specific purpose.) I feel safe and loved, which is pretty wonderful for this busted up weird human primate doing her best to figure life out, I must say. 😆

A token of affection. Love on a chain. The only heart-shaped locket I have ever owned.

I sigh contentedly, even happily. It’s a beautiful morning and I feel loved. I watch the sun light the vineyards along this trail. Such a beautiful moment. I sit here awhile longer. I have some errands to run before I return home to my beloved. I feel fortunate and merry, and supremely pleased to have taken the day off (and grateful to have had that option). Love makes it a beautiful day to be alive.

I smile and breathe the sweetly fragrant Spring breeze. I let the clock tick on (how could I even stop it?), soon enough it will be time to begin again.

It is a lovely Spring morning, and it begins well. The rain stopped just as I got to the trailhead. Daybreak arrived soon after I did.

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

I enjoyed a pleasant moment with my Traveling Partner over coffee, and it is payday. A promising beginning to the day. I’ve even got a manicure appointment later, and managed to go almost 5 weeks since my last one without my cuticles tearing and without picking at my fingers. Major win.

What makes a moment? Mostly what we feel about it.

I get to my halfway point thinking about AI and the number of companies forcing that crap into every app, and every customer portal. It has degraded my experience of everything it touches. I’m frustrated by that, but more and more often I am also (rather cynically) amused. My amusement is mostly to do with the humorous notion that anyone needs to work to “keep up with” peers and colleagues using AI tools. No keeping up necessary. I’m watching their cognitive skills erode in real-time, instead. Wild.

Where AI most often vexes me presently is in the predictive auto-complete function in some applications where some amount of writing is required. I had gotten used to algorithms that specifically learned from my own use of language. At some recent point, it clearly changed, and now it is just… fucking wrong, a lot. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so annoying. It slows me down having to correct that shit constantly. I have my own voice, my own style, and I make my own mistakes in both grammar and spelling. Fuck AI. Who needs it? I’m not looking to sound like anyone else.

I chuckle to myself. I’ve no interest in wasting precious mortal lifetime writing prompts. I’d rather just write, and so I do. Similarly, I’ll do my own shopping, choose recipes without assistance, figure out a route for some road trip without AI, answer a friend’s text or a work email by actually simply typing my reply… I find it worthwhile to use my own mind. It is quite clear that these skills fit into the set of things in human life that are “use it or lose it”, but it is also clear that a lot of people won’t really understand that until they are no longer able to answer a simple question about themselves without asking a slopbot. That’s pretty sad. I make a note to buy more books and read them, and to spend time finishing the book I’m reading now.

The sky lightens. There is a new day ahead, filled with opportunities and choices. I smile, thinking of the garden. It’s time to plant starts and make that fence to go around the veggie bed to keep the deer from feasting on seedlings and topping all my tomatoes and peppers, this year. I have a plan.

I watch the clouds separate into lines and streaks as dawn becomes day. Beautiful blue sky shows through the breaks in the clouds. I feel like painting. This too I do without AI, pastels between my fingertips, eyes on the work, and an idea in mind. AI has no place in art. My opinion, of course, and no AI was required to think the thoughts that brought me to that conclusion.

I sigh happily to myself, enjoying this moment. No AI would be useful for that, either, and isn’t simple enjoyment of a moment one of the most fundamental human experiences? I definitely don’t feel as if I’m at risk of falling behind because I have no appreciation of (or use for) AI or LLM tools.

I glance at the time, reluctant to walk on down the path. I am enjoying this moment right here, now… but it is time to begin again.

It’s definitely Spring here now. Everything is so green and getting greener each day. The combination of warm sunny afternoons, rainy nights, and cool misty mornings here is so lovely! There are so many hues of green!

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

I started down the trail quite a bit later than I do on most mornings. My Traveling Partner was already up this morning, and invited me to linger over coffee. I’m glad I did. We laughed and shared a few humorous moments of lighthearted conversation, a delightful start to the day.

So many hues of green..

The trail is damp and the puddles are plentiful. The oaks are wearing a bright green haze. Mixed among the evergreens along the creek bank, the deciduous trees are becoming hues of lush green and the grassy rows between the vines in the vineyard are bright green and fresh looking (appealing to bunnies, apparently; I see several as I pass by). A sneezing fit stops me briefly, and I am grateful for the packs of travel tissues my beloved gave me from his truck, yesterday. Well-timed generosity. I feel loved.

I find the bench at my halfway point occupied this morning. A rather fat raccoon sitting there tearing open a soggy fast food bag to get at whatever was left in it. She sees me, and before I can snap a picture, she grabs her prize and hops down into the weeds and quickly disappears into the trees and down the creek bank. The bench is damp, but the morning is mild. I put my hoodie down and take a seat.

I sit reflecting on happy outcomes of clear communication and truly having the support of my Traveling Partner. I spent most of yesterday in the studio, and enjoyed “playing in the colors” again. I really needed it. The chance to work creatively in media that feels comfortable, the opportunity to express things I struggle to put into words, and sure, also the satisfaction of creating was long overdue. Cooking doesn’t do the same thing for me. I’m a painter (as many pictures as I do take with my camera, I don’t really consider myself a photographer). It’s not even about “good” work versus “bad” work. I’m not sure art really works that way. A piece that I think was completely flubbed, not worth saving, is just as likely to move someone else as any piece I personally look upon as “a real masterpiece”. Art is very personal. I painted two pieces yesterday, and one of those thoroughly delights me. It’s enough.

“Road’s End”

I sigh contentedly, followed by a poignant pang of sorrow; my Dear Friend will never see this piece. I think she would have loved it. A large plump robin stops in front of me and sings his song directly to me, quite loudly. “What are you trying to tell me, my dude?” I ask softly, though I don’t expect his reply, a further bit of cheerful song, possibly a little demanding in tone. I’m not sure; I don’t speak robin. He cocks his head and looks at me as if waiting for something, before flying away.

I meditate and think about the day ahead. I remind myself to do some laundry. I’d rather paint, but there are other things that also need my attention. I’m okay with that. It feels like balance and normalcy may be returning to the flow of my days. I like that thought.

The gray morning gives no hint at the passage of time. I know the clock is ticking. It’s probably time to begin again.