February 12, 2020

But This Is Wondrous Strange | Week 6, Serious This Time

Week the 6th. Back It On Up.

The Cat in Its Natural Habitat

(Throwaway subtitle: We STILL make mistakes, meaning me, the mistake-maker.)

Yes, last week’s subject line called it the 6th edition, when it was the 5th. Really must go back to sending myself the final draft before publishing to you all. Or does it keep me humble and more real? The latter, right? 💯✌️

---

Give a Hoot: Motivate!

The sunny side of the city

It hits me that I’ve reached a point of paradox in my work. I’m “doing work,” but it isn’t working toward anything. I got stuck on a CSS problem building a set of pages for a pile of things I finished last year, but haven’t been back to chipping away at that stone for a while. I’m feeding the desire to Make Stuff by doing small daily pieces, but they’re unfinished and sketchy. That’s fine when a project is meant to present that aesthetic choice. But I think we should be trying to finish work, and part of that is keeping practice alongside the main monkey business¹. This is complicated by my internet addiction and dopamine hits from The Feeds. So, I’m going to try a throuple of rules:

1. If it’s work time, don’t run to the internet to look something up that’s not immediately necessary, because that way lies endless social media feeds and the outrage of the day.
2. Take a walk, or exercise, or read a physical book for a bit if you need a moment, or put pencil to paper. Basically get back in touch with trees.
3. Establish some work time.

I’m accountable to you all for this, so I’ll push out an update in a future edition. Thanks for being my captive sponsors! To be clear, it doesn’t really mean much to say what I’m going to do, what matters is having done. On the other hand, without a map or a set of goal posts, you can’t get to any place specific.

It’s probably long past time to get back to carrying a sketchbook. It’s a nigh-irreplaceable repository for ideas, skill-building, and recording moments. For an assignment in one of my drawing classes, my prof had everyone take a cheap sketchbook and make a “visual diary,” but not drawn things so much. Scraps of wrappers we found walking around campus, images torn out of magazines, leaves, actual food, all those were desirable to jam in there.² The same abandon and need to put something on a page when it strikes you is a good habit to cultivate. And I could probably use a little of the craziness my drawing professor tried to ignite in his students. What’s art without a little crazy? Less fun art, I say.

---

More of the Things We’re Really Reluctant to Talk About

Death is weird, and grief is even weirder. It’s been a little over 7 years since my mother died. Her birthday was at the end of January, which always brings up the mass of emotions and memories of our lives together and how deeply I miss her. At the time, in the midst of my shock over her diagnosis, I wrote:

[…] we don’t live life being suspicious of healthy people who get sick for a while. I still can’t quite believe that cancer is real. I never had to face the fact that Mom wouldn’t be around forever before, and for the last few days I’ve felt a sinking sensation that’s soon followed by forgetting about it. Down and up. Down and up.

I started a Tumblr blog to get some of these things out, to break spiraling internal loops, but I couldn’t bear more than three entries before it was too much for me to process in the moment. But we all have our own coping mechanisms, and our own need to work through grief in a personal way. Some friends I know have gone on crying jags for days, and move to a more gentle acceptance and a reliance on happy memories to outweigh the pain pretty quickly. I didn’t cry much at first, and found it easier to distract myself and throw my attention into projects. It took a very long time to be able to state my genuine gratitude for being so lucky a child as to have a wonderful parent to anyone else. Before that, it just seemed crushingly unfair.

I hope you have or had loving parents who gave you their best insights and care, and who you appreciate and love completely back. If that’s the case, tell them early and often.

Serendipity! I found Daniel Savage’s “Igneous”—which is meant to evoke parental loss visually—while I was putting this edition together.

Pax Exeunt!