My homecoming was lovely, although I arrived in what turned out to be the middle of my Traveling Partner’s work day. I did my best to stay out of that, and to respect his work day.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
I’m still thinking over experiences and lessons learned from my coastal getaway. Sometimes the processing takes more time than the lived experience. The thoughts come in waves, glimmering with the reflected light of many little fragments and impressions, the way the afternoon sunshine sparkles on the rippled surface of the sea.
It’s a metaphor.
There’s time for all that. I yawn as the sunrise begins to develop color. I drink in the autumn air on the edge of the marsh. A little chime goes off on my phone, reminding me to take morning meds. I stupidly attempt this simple feat without water, and choke on a tiny dry tablet that wants to stick dangerously near my airway. I cough several times, hard, and get relief, but now there’s a spot in my throat that just feels wrong, somehow. Annoying.
Like a moment on fire.
As I sit watching the sky, it lights up in hues of pink, magenta, lavender, and raspberry. So beautiful! No picture would really do this justice, and if I painted it just as it is, I feel certain it would be criticized for lack of realism. It’s quite fantastic and splendid, and I feel fortunate to see it. Wow.
I breathe, exhale, and relax, and think about the day ahead. He has appointments. I have an errand to run. Later, we’ll catch up with each other at home. He proposes we do something together. I agree that sounds nice. No idea what that will mean when we get there… but I’m looking forward to it. It’s easy to forget that today is a work day. I’m glad I took it off, instead of immediately diving back into work!
I sit with my thoughts and this beautiful sunrise. Soon enough it will be time to begin again.
This world we live in – we created it. Together, all of us. It’s a strange thought, isn’t it? Every choice, every action, every mistake, every great new idea; it is through us that we make our world. Choose wisely, eh?
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
This morning I read that Peter Max had died. Monday it was. There’s a little less color in this world with his passing, but realistically, the colors he juxtaposed on canvas (or on envelopes), were not enough to render the world as beautiful as he saw it. I wipe away a single tear with a sad smile and think of Van Gogh for no particular reason.
…I offer them both a silent salute, raising my water bottle to the starry night sky, before I head down the trail…
I rub my hands together a bit for warmth as I reach my halfway point and take a seat for a moment or two. I think of Monet’s failing eyesight, and feel the pain in my thumbs. He kept painting. No doubt I will too, for as long as I’m able.
I sigh to myself feeling the threads connecting my work to theirs. These are more pleasant thoughts, generally, than contemplating the mess humanity has made of the world. Artists and makers know, perhaps more than most people, we are creating this world we live in, all of us, together. So, what are we choosing to make? Is this really what we want? Can’t we do better, relatively easily? I think about that awhile, watching Orion slowly rise in the eastern sky. He’ll vanish from view when daybreak comes.
What exactly are you doing to make the world a better place? I mean the easy stuff, close to home, like treating your partner and family well, and being helpful to a friend, a neighbor, a stranger of another ethnicity. I mean the somewhat harder stuff, too, like speaking truth to power, like standing firm on explicitly calling genocide “genocide”, even if doing so seems to be at odds with national pride or political interests. I mean the obvious stuff, like picking up trash, and keeping things tidy, too. It all counts. It adds up. We could do more, and better.
I think about the weekend ahead. My beloved Traveling Partner programmed the marine traffic radio frequencies into my radio, so I can try listening to the shipping traffic while I’m on the coast. I grin to myself, feeling very loved.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I meditate on gratitude and wonder. I reflect on painting inspiration as yet unfulfilled. I reflect on love and prematurely experience a pang of wistful loss and absence – I will miss my Traveling Partner (I always do). He is my beloved, my muse – why not just paint at home? Why not bring him along? It’s honestly this; I need some solitary time to thrive, and more than that, my passion for my partner is both deeply inspiring, and also an incredible distraction. 😆 When he is near, I will reliably choose his company over most other things, however needful, urgent, or pleasant, those things might be. (It’s admittedly not ideally emotionally healthy, and I am frankly unconcerned.) Since I need to paint and write to be emotionally and mentally well, this sets up a bit of a self-care conflict, internally, so vacations and getaways with my partner are quite a separate thing. This has worked for us. Your results may vary.
I breathe in the autumn scented air. I watch a brightly lit farm machine moving back and forth among the vineyard rows, a way off. Earlier a heavily loaded, slow, quite long freight truck pulled through, on the narrow agricultural access road that cuts through the vineyard. It’s bright colorful lights made a merry display as it bounced slowly along. There’s a hint of sweetness in the air… grapes? Am I imagining the scent?
It’s a lovely beginning to a new day. I slept well. I hope my beloved did too. I think about dinner later – leftover enchiladas. It’s not fancy but the company and conversation will be excellent. My partner is working on a new (work) project. I hope he has a fantastic day working on it. I’m eager for him to tell me more, over dinner.
We live in the world we’ve made. Let’s make it a good one, for everyone. We can begin again. We can do better.
It is the dawn of a new day. Yesterday’s mistakes and stepped on boundaries are in the past. This is a completely new and different moment. I walk down the dark marsh trail, following the circle of light provided by my headlamp.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
I get to a pleasing stopping point. A favorite fallen log at the edge of a grassy hillside dotted with oak trees makes a decent seat. I wait, watching the eastern horizon for first light on this cloudy morning. I sit with my thoughts, reflecting on a theory my Traveling Partner shared with me recently, about a recurring theme in my artwork, “the nightmare city”. It is my rendering of a dream, a nightmare, that I have had on a recurring basis for many years. I maybe don’t remember not having this nightmare (more often than occasionally).
“The Nightmare City” 8″ x 10″ acrylic on canvas w/glow
The dream itself is simple enough. I am in a city. It seems peculiarly “hollowed out”, as if the buildings are all fake, just facades standing in neat rows. There is a background glow, but it’s hard to tell if it is lights left on, or fire, or warfare. I am walking briskly towards some point in the distance, then running breathlessly but wanting very much to stop. I usually wake before I reach that distant point, heart pounding, breathless, and frightened. Sometimes I’m in it, trapped, hurtling towards some point, when a loud blast of noise hits me with physical force, and there is a sort of popping noise and a flash of light, and so much pain. I wake, grateful to have found my way from the nightmare city, again.
The Nightmare City, some other night, different lighting.
I’ve painted the nightmare city several times. Sketched it. Painted in acrylic, with a ton of glow. Painted in watercolor, ephemeral and surreal. Painted in pastels, a city in flames and as a forlorn abandoned place that can’t harm me now. My nightmares draw me back into that strange city again and again, as if there is something unspoken that wants a voice…
Another version, “Urban Warfare”, rendered in pastels, in 2024, when old trauma and new wars collide in my dreams.
My Traveling Partner only shared his theory when I insisted I’d really like to know his thoughts. He shared his impression that it may be a remnant of “the last thing I saw” before (more specifically as) I injured my head. I don’t recall my injury with any clarity, at all. Hints of partial recollections of fragments of vague memories that generally my consciousness mind has difficulty approaching. A sense of…flight? A gasp, like a final deep breath before plunging into darkness? A distant point of perspective that rushes towards me without properly changing as the distance draws near. An explosion of light? Nothing useful. The official version, when anyone would discuss it with me at all, much later in life, was that I fell down some stairs, maybe (and now can we please talk about something else?).
“Daylight Comes to the Nightmare City”, in pastels, 2026.
My Traveling Partner finally admitted, he sees something characteristic and distinct about my nightmare city paintings; to him they can also potentially be seen as a staircase, or bannister finial, from the perspective of hurtling towards it head first. “Once I realized, I can’t unsee it,” he said. Since he shared that with me, I see it too. I touch the small triangular “divet” I feel on my forehead, and trace the cracks I feel under the skin that radiate out from there, to my hairline, and down into my right eye socket.
… And I wonder…
… Trauma is weird. I still see the city, the road leading away, and feel a strangely nauseous feeling when I contemplate walking down that peculiarly dark street as it seems to narrow towards a point. In my dreams, I never quite reach whatever waits at the other end of the road…
For no obvious reason, I hear a Sam Cooke song in my head as I sit with my thoughts, “… What a wonderful world this would be…”. I sit in the stillness of a summer morning betwixt meadow and marsh, waiting for the sun. Waiting to understand something just out of reach of any clear memories. There’s rarely much anger left over this broken brain – there are more important things to be angry about, these days. I’m okay with who I am, most of the time. I’m grateful for my Traveling Partner, for his kindness not rushing to put ideas in my head out of compassion and love, and for sharing his thoughts willingly and gently when pressed. Considering I really don’t remember my injury, having hints and insights helps me process the unknown, and even the potentially unknowable.
… I’m okay with the uncertainty; I am loved. I can begin again, as often as I need to, in order to heal and grow, and walk on. I look down the path fearlessly. I am awake, and safe, and life is pretty good. I smile, thinking soft happy thoughts about my partner, my best friend. I get to my feet, grateful, humming some tune that is stuck in my my head…
I woke gently, got up, dressed, and kissed my beloved on my way out. It was dark (and very early) then, and it is after daybreak now.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
My walk was pleasant, and the miles passed quickly. It’s a work day, and I guess on some level I am feeling purposeful. I say so, noticing that I didn’t stop at any sort of halfway point this morning. I walked and walked, lost in thought, until my walk was over. Shit. That’s a little strange, but not a problem at all (just a difference).
I get to the car and sit comfortably, writing, my random musings still banging on the latched screen door of my consciousness, like a friend who won’t let me sleep in on a summer morning, peering in from the closed door, calling my name. I write easily, about nothing. Mornings and coffee, walks and changing seasons, merriment and sorrow – all just words on a page until someone (maybe you?) connects some point I’m making with their own experience, and finds comfort or insight there. I think about that for a little while.
Sunrise comes. I’m still thinking my thoughts. Insignificant stray thoughts about nothing particular, mostly, and my writing pauses to let some thoughts move on along without comment. Like pedestrians in an intersection, the signal changes, traffic flows, and stops continues, then pauses, over and over again. Same with my writing, I suppose. Some mornings the words pour out of me like a busy freeway, other mornings my mind is stop and go traffic during some mental rush hour, slow and not getting anywhere any time soon. 😆
I yawn and watch the pink and blue gradient of the morning sky slowly change. A new day, eh? I guess I’d better be getting on with it, then. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I begin again.
I spent beautiful hours in my studio yesterday, productive, creative time. More importantly, it was time spent painting things I lack words for. Art is good for that.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
There are many people who think they “don’t like” (visual) art, or don’t understand it. When I hear that, I often wonder if they have ever given thought to the idea that art is quite personal. Between the work as a practical thing and the perspective on the piece that each individual brings to seeing it, the understanding exists as a thing of its own. Every piece is not for every person. Don’t like Jackson Pollock? Okay. There are many other artists. Can I interest you in Monet, Van Gogh, or Peter Max? How about Ronnie Gold or Rothko? Each artist communicating their own way, about what matters to them, and putting it out into the world where a multitude can see it. Each person with their own thoughts and perspective, and potentially taking something from any given work that even the artist did not understand from the piece. That’s how art functions as communication, but whether a particular piece leaves any one individual unmoved is…fine. Also the way art works. Some pieces are not for us.
“Seeing Red”
… I paint things that “aren’t for you” all the time. Sometimes I paint things that are not for me, as well. 😆 I often paint to express something difficult or to process emotions, as a way of getting something “off my chest”, and to say it, to transform it, or to rob it of power over me. For me art is an act of self-care.
I walk down this morning’s trail, thinking about art and eager to be back in the studio again. My Traveling Partner also knows how important time spent painting is for me and he kept nudging me gently toward the studio yesterday, helping me avoid self-care self-sabotage traps (like housekeeping tasks that can wait a day or two). This morning I feel lighter of heart and more contented. I keep walking.
A wispy autumn mist envelopes me as I near the creek. It’s cooler this morning. I’m grateful for the cozy sweater I chose this morning. Laundry is something I can do “while I paint”, but I didn’t finish the task; it is unfolded, still in the laundry basket. This sweater just happened to be on top. lol That seems very human. And isn’t that the thing about art? It is uniquely human. Human ideas, human emotions, human complexities, human stories… “Art” created by AI isn’t actually art.
“Skyline Sunset”
I breathe the chilly morning air. It definitely smells of autumn now. Somewhere in the distance, someone has recently had their fireplace lit; I smell a faint hint of wood smoke in the air. Daybreak comes as I reach my halfway point. Chased by Venus, the crescent moon has been rising as I walk. She’s still visible, but as daylight fills the sky, the moon fades from view. I stop to write, reflect, and meditate. It’s a new day.
My thoughts are filled with paintings I’d like to paint… my studio is waiting on the other side of the work day… it’s a good time to begin again.
