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For some time now, I’ve had an internal running joke that I’ve occasionally externalized. It goes something like “If I’m ever to enter into any sort of relationship again, someone will just have to fall from the sky, start fixing shit, and then go (the fuck) away.”
In other news, my muse has disappeared into the mountains for an undetermined amount of time. While I never specified the kind of relationship, it ultimately and hilariously satisfies the parameters of my request, and his absence has an edge that deepens my gratitude for solitude. It’s nice to miss someone’s presence, yet still feel content. I’m surprised to find my nervous system looking forward to hearing stories of his adventures when he returns instead of inventing a million stories of its own about his absence.
One thing that has been grounding me is my daily ritual. A couple years ago, I started a practice of spending the last hour of my night among my art supplies. No screens (unless I need a reference image) but access to all of the art supplies I have been hoarding. Getting started was pretty simple. I have a planner that I use to summarize every day with a few sentences, and that was the bare minimum I needed to accomplish in that time. A couple of weeks in, I tried using Lynda Barry’s Syllabus as a sort of “prompt” to get me started, and I threw a temper tantrum over the sheer amount of ridiculous rules in that book and quit the practice for like a month (sorry, Lynda! You are wonderful, but you’re waaaaay to ruly for me!) (Like, srsly, I don’t even talk to one person in a given WEEK, how’m I supposed to write about several interactions in a DAY?)
I eventually came back to it with Zentangles, and that really helped. Zentangles are simple enough to fall back on when there is nothing else on my mind, meditative enough to hold my focus for an hour at a time, and cool looking enough to make me feel like I’ve spent my time making something worthwhile. Plus, Zentangles have the added bonus of being something I can do while talking to customers during my workday.
After zentangling for a bit, I started experimenting with different media. I have always been a chalk pastel person, but I invested in a nice set of oil pastels and played with blending them. I also tried working with things like acrylic paint pens, and watercolor pens. They are both so gratifyingly buttery on the page, and allow for layering when fully dry so they can be mixed and matched with other media.
Another thing I have done to make sure I’m getting my hands dirty on a daily basis is make little portable file boxes with art supplies in them that I can lug out onto the porch or deck or even off into the forest if I’d like.
This year, in mid-spring I devised this ritual:
I enter the space where I’ll be performing the ritual. Usually I create a playlist or at least choose an artist or theme of music. If I’m outside, I might choose to listen to the birds, instead. But there is almost always music.
I light a candle or incense, and take some time to sit with my feelings and the events of the day. The events may be in my own life, but usually this is the time I take to process what is typically horrible news from around the world, the country, my town. If I need to use the internet during this time to reflect, that’s cool. I try to take screenshots throughout the day of things I need to reflect on and process, but I also don’t want to take up too much time with this part of the ritual, and there is so much bad new these days. I admit sometimes I just can’t feel it all. However, it’s at this point that I usually have a good cry. I don’t know about y’all, but I cry several times a day these days. However, it’s nice to have a space and time to let it all out.
Once I’m done with that, I’ll move into reading. I usually have at least one book I’m reading, along with a zine or comic book, and a few different poetry/philosophy/inspirational essay books. Right now, I’m reading The Assassination of Fred Hampton by Jeffrey Haas, a book of poetry by Wendell Berry, the Tao te Ching, and some books on pagan holidays. I’m between zines right now, but I was reading some issues of an old zine by a friend of mine in Austin that I probably would not have been friends with if I had read his zine today. hahaha.
After that, I choose my medium and sit with whatever it is I need to sit with and make something. Sometimes it will be a little poem, or just a recollection about my day in my journal. Sometimes it’s art; a drawing of something I saw or am looking at, word art about a song I’m listening to, something in the news. Sometimes I listen to the news and just write random words in various places on the page, overwriting and overlapping and underlapping and twisting and turning with different media and various colors until almost the whole page is just a blur of random pen strokes.
Sometimes, I’ll do multiple things. Occasionally, I’ll leave something unfinished, or finish something I previously began. Often when I’m done I’ll take pictures of whatever I’ve created. If there’s a good groove jamming, I might finish with a little dance. Then I tidy everything back up, blow out the candle, turn off of the music, and close the ritual. Usually afterwards I share something I’ve made with someone I love.
I often talk about how I love that winter in Maine is like an annual reset. The slate of the outdoor space is wiped clean for whatever spring brings. Having a daily ritual that involves space to grieve, reflect, celebrate, and share is sort of like winter in Maine. Look at that! I create the seasons!
And that, my friends, is how I am nourishing my soul during these times. Fuck the dishes! Make art, instead.
This post is also available in a paid version, which has pictures that are not included in this free version. If you are interested in supporting my work or if you want to see the pretty pictures, please feel free to gimme your money here: (Look at me! Doing a capitalism!)
How’s everyone doing? Would it help y’all if I talked about the projects I’m working on, and the creative process I’m using on the comic book? Maybe put some soothing music on? Sit back…relax…and read on? It’s only good news here right now for the next however long it takes for you to read whatever the hell I’m about to write and by maude it better be good now that I’ve placed the entire fucking weight of the world on my damn shoulders for no good reason. bahahaha.
Anyway…it’s been a beautiful and difficult couple of months for me, and the difficult things are tangentially caused by the beautiful things, because the beautiful things make the difficult things stand out in stark detail. And that contrast is also somehow beautiful. So I guess that means beauty wins? Or something. Yes. I’ll just say that beauty wins, because for however long I’m writing this, I own reality, and that’s what I’m deciding is true.
With that decided, I want to share some details about the beautiful thing I am working on that just fills me with so much glee. It is a collaboration, of sorts, because the sweet dear friend who inspired it also fills me with glee, and that glee has been just churning out a ton of positive, creative energy which also fills me with glee. It’s like a fucking perpetual glee machine over here as long as I have my face stuck in the flow, but sometimes you have to pull away from glee and get back to reality, but no. Not right now. In this post. For these however many minutes I am writing this, perpetual glee prevails, damnit! I decree! I decree perpetual glee!
(the following is where the paid version has a bunch of really great pictures that you totally want to pay to see! hahaha.)
Crow & Oyster is a about an unlikely friendship built on mutual aid, community care, and creative collaboration.
Crow is a traveler, a protector of children, and a bringer of light who suddenly finds himself in the dark.
Oyster is, quite literally, bogged down in the toxic swamp, where she spends her days converting poisonous silt into shiny pearls that serve no real pupose.
Tragic circumstances bring them together, but they form a unique bond that spans time, distance, and differences in lived experience.
This first issue is their “origin story,” and I really hope I can continue to write about these two silly characters. I don’t often write fiction, but I’m getting the picture! I love these two characters so damn much. When I think about all of the shenanigans and hijinx they can get up to, I just get a big old goofy grin on my face.
However, given that I’m not a practiced or disciplined artist, my challenge is time. I think what I’m going to do for this first issue is use images that I draw, and juxtapose them over collaged backgrounds that I scan. The scenes are basically the jungle, the toxic swamp, and the ocean (maybe) and the sky above each. So I can make those backgrounds, and I might experiment with different media along with the images I have drawn.
Y’all, I really love this story so much. It is such a fun puzzle to solve. Our collective ability to invent new worlds is so important. We all really need to flex that muscle and create as much as we can as often as possible.
I also have another collaborative project in the works that I’m crossing crossing crossing my fingers comes to fruition. I don’t want to say anything out loud, because I don’t want to jinx it. A different dear old friend I have been trying to collaborate on a project with for-fucking-ever, but when we were close before, our relationship was filled with a turbulence that, thankfully, neither of us seems interested in generating anymore. Which is nice, you know? It’s good to go to hell and back with someone. Clears the sinuses and whatnot. So, cross your fingers on that one for me.
There are no words for how thankful I am for the creative energy in my life right now. It’s shiny shiny shiny, and I want to turn that shine outward if I can. So if anyone needs a pick-me-up pep talk or anything…please feel free to reach out. I have capacity. I am holding all of the sad things in my heart, and the beauty is still winning out! Yay beauty and glee! But also, I am not averse to collapsing into wracking sobs and yay for that, too. For the contrast, if nothing else. And because it reminds me I am a human being living in this contrived. reality that is designed to make us feel helpless and defeated and alone. Try not to forget that part.
(Every full moon (ish) I pull out my old journals and peek at what I was doing around this time at various points of my life. It’s fun and entertaining, and makes me glad I have kept journals and been a total fucking packrat about it my entire life. I hope you enjoy these snippets of my life. I’ve kept the dates, but excluded the years to add to the mystery! Random photos from the same time period in different years also!)
5/1 Mayday Picnic: Listening to music under the cypress trees
5/7 Saw Cibo Matto last night with Carla. It was a night of cute, although I cringe at the thought of saying that, as I imagine the diminutive faction of Cibo Matto are not fond of the term.
The first band consisted of two boys from Dallas. I do mean boys. They looked high school age. They spent thirty minutes or so frantically darting around a bunch of samplers & mixers, producing sounds that wavered from heavy groove dance beat, to scions of noise, to loops, etc. The thing wast it was so disconcerting to watch them hunch over their boards and race around disconnecting and reconnecting wires even if I was un-self-conscious enough to dance, I would have been fretfully unable to do so. I did manage to grab a free record from them after their set.
The second band, Delta ’72, reminded me a lot of a segment on MUPPET ROCK & ROLL in which the muppets do a parody of Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction.” (“no no no no no COOPERATION!) The lead singer of this band exhibited the same strut and preen and over-the-top but seemingly utterly sincere expressions to go along with the garage soul funk music & constantly yelling out of“DO YOU FEEL ALRIGHT!” Not to mention the endless amounts of energy as he climbed onto speakers, monitors & at one point, the organ that a fellow band member was using as a punching bag. To top it all off were the occasional rock god jumps into splits and back up without missing a beat (is the human body supposed to be capable of these types of manouvers? I don’t know, but between the bottom of the undersized bowling shirt and the edge of the thick white belt decoratively embellishing skin-tight hip-hugger jeans, I caught glimpses of what must be THE most muscular BACK in the world (and, honey, I work out at Future Firm, aka Buff-o-rama, but I couldn’t imagine any of the buff dudes being capable of the gymnastic feats this guy was pulling off without a blink.)) I gotta admit, I was laughing & I’m not sure if it was supposed to be funny. But aside from the sheer entertainment value of the stage presence, the band actually ROCKED & rocked pretty damn hard. I was impressed. Apprently, they’re from PA, or something.
Anyway, they ended their set with a soulful ministry – a series of admonishments to “FEEL ALRIGHT” and to carry that feeling home with us and, hopefully into the bedroom (accompanied by compulsory pelvic thrusts, for emphasis) etc. And the wait for Cibo began.
It occurred to me at this point that A) just about everyone in the room was considerably younger than me; B) There’s an encouraging trend among young women to NOT wear makeup; and C) after all my years going to punk rock shows that attract a primarily white, middle class boy audience, it was nice to see such a wide variety of middle class boys and girls of all races gathered in the same place.
“That’s Sean Lennon” exclaimed a guy in back of us. “Get a picture of his shoes!” Said his companion. Intrigued, I turned to look & was met with sheepish smiles. “We design shoes,” they explained. So, the band set up and strode onstage and began a set of sheerly energetic, soulful, tuneful, danceful, CUTE music.
What impresses me about Cibo is the sheer ease with which they pull it off. The keyboardist danced, the bass player strummed, and the melodies issued forth effortlessly from the throat of Yuka Honda, whose movements also seemed natural and effortless, even when she was pogoing about the stage. The only people on stage who appeared to be getting a workout were the drummer and the bongo player who were both, by the way, awesome athletes as well as musicians (the drummer of the previous band, too, struck me as praiseworthy, in spite of the fact that the only knowledge of drums I possess is the long past crush I once had on the drummer from Friends of Betty (Chicago) and my memoir of my unrequited love – two ends of a shattered drumstick. What can I say, I like my men to beat it hard…er…)
At any rate, Cibo put on a fantastic show, performing songs off of a forthcoming release, as well as many from Viva Lo Woman. They also did an incredible version of Moon River, which everyone chuckled about at first, but were quickly enraptured by the dynamic diva. A great show. A great night (even though I ended it by telling a really (intentionally) dumb joke to a stranger and getting totally dissed for it) A great band.
5/8 Glazed, Dazed…and annoyed. Sitting in the dorm room and D’s composing. I haven’t been writing lately – don’t know why. Next week, I’m supposed to go to California and I just don’t want to go for work. Whatever. Will do my job happily, but why should I do any more?
Made chili yesterday and had guests. D and I got stoned before working out, and when I came home, Harold and Angela and Mr…? (Angela’s boyfriend) were sitting in my living room with John. It was kind of weird. I didn’t think I was really stoned, but apparently I was being really loud and even singing out loud at the gym. And we stopped at Alberton’s on the way home, where D proudly announced that he’d been really horny the night before & I hadn’t done anything about it. Quite loudly. While in line to pay for our items. I didn’t really think much of it until D pointed out that he said it.
And home. I guess I was cracking really bad jokes all day while they watched Body Bag and Baywatch. And John fell asleep on the couch and exposed his belly to us all. D went home to get his allowance and his trombone. Then he came back and we smoked some more before taking John back to the dorm. I did a little too much and started freaking out a bit – saw a fire truck flashing on the way back and instantly became paranoid that I had left the stove on and D took me home after purposely losing a round of Mortal Kombat II. Sweet boy.
Then back to the dorm to watch some Talk Soup and then to Jeremy’s house for a bit of a fine movie called RHINESTONE in which Dolly Parton teaches Sylvester Stallone how to be a country and western singer. This after a nice little dinner at Magnolia.
D and I both fell asleep during RHINESTONE, but he stayed at my house. The night before, we watched BOXING HELENA at D’s dad’s house.
May 7 12:56 AM I think I have given up on getting to sleep at a decent hour & have therefore also decided to call out SICK one more day. I’m feigning a stomach bug that I sort of almost have. And plain exhaustion, honestly.
I have been able to get SO MUCH done these past few days. Today, specifically, I got all of my fitness goals met & seeded the remainder of rows 2 & 3 and ALSO the salad bar. I ordered a TON of stuff I need, more masks and a face shield.
At some point, I may do a run out to BJ’s for a cart’s worth of supplies, but I’m going to hold out until it’s evident I need to – like if we run out of something in the cart. The goal is to not shop at the grocery again this month & use other resources, but I’m still being very VERY spendy.
I’ve been thinking, too, about how the garden will evolve. I’m not sure I’m a straight row person. Once I’m done seeding this bed, I want to experiment & play with different gardens. I think the perennial asparagus bed will be next. I want to try broad forking it, but if it ends up being TOO difficult, I’ll buy a little mantis or something. I want to look up pics of asparagus patches to see how creative I can get with it. Can I plant asparagus & strawberry TOGETHER? & when do I plant elderberry? Is it too late for all of this? Perhaps I may need to prep & cover the beds & just wait. But I have no time to plan that now. I need to make time for planning.
5/7 9:30 PM It’s all about control. And just because I’m trying to not be controlling doesn’t mean that there won’t be a controlling element. And I DON’T want to control things…but that doesn’t mean I want someone else to control me. And I DON’T want to play fucking mind games, but that doesn’t stop anyone else. All I want is someone to be friends with.
He tells me he wants me to go to this Irish folk music thing, but tells me I need to ride my bicycle. But I don’t have a lock – so he tells me he will meet me outside the place and will lock me up with his bike. I tell him that I don’t trust him – that I feel like he’s telling me to go somewhere that doesn’t exist. But I go anyway. He shows up late, with the friends who drove him. He has no bicycle, and therefore no lock. He greets me with a peck on the nose & I tell him I have to go. Hop on my bike and leave feeling cut out hollow empty inside. He tells me he might try to stop by later, and I really don’t want to be here when he does, so I go to Harold’s and hang out with the boys. Whatever.
So it goes. I guess I was just wrong about his sincerity. God damn. I BELIEVE words. He’s telling me not to believe. Well, it’s a good excuse for saying what you don’t really mean, but that’s about it. It’s a fucking farce. I just wanted a friend to treat and be treated accordingly. Now (the past two times I’ve hung out with him) I just walk away feeling like shit.
In a way, I’m still excited and wondering what comes next. He tells me he doesn’t trust anyone, and I say I trust everyone and no one and he asks me what yoga book I got that out of. As if saying that you trust no one is DEEPLY original. Fuck that shit.
Anyway, that’s my angst-ridden tale for now. I am having much fun basking in Harold and Bryan’s presence. They are making life livable throughout good and bad times. Thank goodness for that shit.
5/8 2:30 AM (in big bed) PROP 1 WAS DEFEATED!! Now folks need to gear up for the state lege.
Finally settled on the “voice” of the zine In conquest of discovery. With the idea in mind that it is easier to focus on voice when a particular (known) audience is imagined. I’ve been thinking about this as regards the zine. What voice? Who am I writing for? Because writing it for myself is trite & writing to a general audience doesn’t move me. So I decided to write it for my kids. Everything I write, really. In the voice of my relationship with them. Even if they never read it. I want them to know what my life was like, without getting overly muddled in weird relationship dynamics.
For the kids, then. To my kids.
I wonder if this warrants ANOTHER Intro.
May 7 10:15 AM I’m at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center – hiking around & looking at flowers while my car is serviced. Wishing this place wasn’t crawling with Jesus school kids. I’m determined to get my steps in before I head back to the service center.
Beyond how beautiful this place is – it smells amazing. Not overly cloying, but fresh and earthy. I just wish it wasn’t so humid out. I will not miss the Austin humidity.
On my walk through the trails, I saw a little baby bunny. He seemed to feel safe with me, and followed-in-font-of-me a ways before hopping out through the grass.
Though it is humid, it’s also overcast, so there’s that. A relief from the sun that seems to make every visit I’ve ever made here miserable. Plus, it’s a perfect time of year to be here – everything is in bloom & I can witness what I will miss when I move.
5/9 11:30 PM I should be asleep b/c I start work at 7 AM tomorrow, but it’s been an exciting/fun day & I ended it by playing the Sims all night, which was difficult to drag myself away from
Got my hair done today, which felt great. Took Ride Austin there & then to 888 to meet up with Kit. And then my ride home was with an older man named Deepak & we had the best conversation about life and plans & real estate. I was, perhaps, providing him with more personal information than necessary. He did not shy away and offered advice and kinship.
My plan is starting to gel! I’m feeling more and more like Maine is where I need to be & unless I find some sort of DREAM house situation somewhere else, I’m finding myself magnetically pulled in that direction.
