To Post Each Day: Lines

I have been using an unlined journal since late September. The hope was that I would “art journal.” It did not work to plan.

I had no idea I would start a 365 – 2020 Creativity Project. Now, I want to post handwritten pages like on my previous Creativity Project. I write better with lines, so I am beginning this journal. I like the cover very much.

Oh, but to write that first page, scary. The tone of the whole journal is set in those lines. What to say? This is, However, Whatever, Whenever, Wherever, Why? Volume Six.

Come around later and find out what will be.

Would you, could you, will you join me? I am sure there is room in the neighborhood.

I do not know if I will make 56 posts this month, but this is two, and I am committing to another today.

Oh Yes, Books

“…However formidable they are, books, my dear, are just sparks. The fire is only lit where there’s wood to kindle, so to speak.” – The Binder of Lost Stories by Cristina Caboni

These are a few books that travel to the common areas and back to the bedroom every day because I am sometimes reading them.

Against the Storm

They say I have too
Many books, I say there would
Be more, could I afford another.
They say give them away,
Would it not be pleasant for others
To get the benefit of reading?
I say, maybe had I read them all,
And were not most writing, art,
Creativity tomes that I always need.
They say you can get them on Kindle,
I say and pay again, oh, not these
First editions, they are priceless.
They say if you have not read them
By now you will not ever do it,
I say I am getting around to them
Over time and time again,
They say the floor is going
To collapse and you fall through,
I mean, it has not yet, and I doubt
Sincerely it ever will.
The argument goes on and on
And even the Supremes could not
Declare a winner, because part
Of what holds me together is reading
Books when my mind is stormy weather.

I figure if I leave off reading library books, I might read all of mine in a hundred years, maybe two hundred. I give some I finish away.

Pens, Tanka, Joined Tanka Poems; & More

Most people I know who are writers are pen aficionados, and I am guilty. I have been collecting pens for an age. I like to put them at the top of my website, but their provenance varies. The one up there now is one of a bunch I picked up during the time Target had exotic pens. I could afford to spend very little on them, and there they were. I do not think any of them were over $10.

The thing about those pens is that many of them are just as beautiful as costly ones today. I try to control my obsession.

Behave, stop looking,
Now, do not go there, be good,
Avoid, remain free,
Go look at the collection
No pen do you need, require.

I once thought if I had a Mont Blanc, I would have arrived as a writer. Sam’s Club used to sell them in the 2000s. I had worked for a while, then wound up hospitalized. While working, I got my pen. My thoughts on arrival were erroneous. I begin to doubt ever arriving. My investment in becoming a competent and self-educated writer, though, has been intense.

Alex is after me to get rid of books and clothes, and I am not reacting docilely to the suggestion. He has not gone after the pens, though. I can hope he has not noticed, but more likely, being trained in military tactics, he is biding his time and wishing to obtain those other objectives before attacking another front.

He told me today, for the first time in my life, I wish you were normal. I wish I were normal, it would be so much easier. I have never been normal. I do thank God I am at least partially functional.

Today, I got the call par excellence, Monday, is my trip to the psychiatrist. As usual, I would love to instead send someone else, attend by proxy. All-day, it takes all day.

Love Holds

I think of you, blue,
The sky, sea, the heart of me,
Without an answer,
I think my incompetence
Yet I dream you, many things.

Did I say too much
Or provide you too little,
I was way off stride,
So much depends on the words
Yet, sometimes language evades.

I fought crystal tears
Light icicles, waterfalls,
Wonder if I am
Anything, anyone, one
Better than imagining.

I step back into
Shadows, blue-black and opaque,
If it is, maybe,
Time freely given, settles,
Around these forsaken feet.

Time is a captor
Of hearts, loves all meant sublime
Whatever will be,
Will be, times without number
At my organ, I sang and played.

I thought to have left
Uncertainties behind, but
I find the circle
Wheels round, round, over again
But I scarce remember why.

As a prompt: Our hearts and minds often overwhelm us. If you feel your emotions, thoughts, adrift in a whirlpool, put a hook in, and pull out something. Then take it, elaborate, gnaw at it, and create a work in your chosen art. Let it be random. If that means a computerized randomizer or a jar with slips of paper, it might be just what you need.

I want you to know you are beautiful, worthy, talented, and you have a purpose. Do not give up. Many people believe you are precious, even if they do not express it. You, you be the one to express love and sow hope. I believe in you.

When we open our eyes to nature, even the weeds are beautiful. God creates paintings if we choose to see.

AWay (Joined Tankas & More)

2020-01-26_A Way

This drawing was done last week, but I was not happy with it. Still practicing. I have to find my way in that too.

2020-01-26_Drawing

I finished the book, The Ten Thousand Doors of January last night. This book was a pure delight. I give it a five only because most ratings do not go to ten. I recommend you read it. Love, adventure, complicated relationships, the power of Words. I will not spoil it.

This is one of my current reads:

This is a fascinating book, maybe more than I bargained for when I bought it.

I am grateful:

For bananas: and learning, they can be refrigerated.
For coffee, you know, coffee.
For the things I own.
For the ability to read, write, and do art and photography.
For Alex, who means the world to me.

As a prompt, review something you have read, seen, or done lately. Share it, or just make it yours.

Coffee, Poems, Ramblings

Alex went to bed. I am wired, see the photo above for an explanation. Alex wants me to cease drinking diet sodas, which I am catastrophically addicted to, and he believes coffee is the answer. The truth about coffee is it usually makes my acid reflux worse, (which I have ceased treatment for due to the lack of a colonoscopy). I did not have that problem this time. I take my coffee, much like a soda (with Splenda, and brew specific – a generous amount of vanilla extract), which might make it even worse than those drinks I am assured are killing me. I do not do compliance exceptionally well. There would seem to be some stubbornness on board.

Being stubborn very likely is the only reason I am alive. I could not fight my monsters without I were tenacious. The last few days have been abysmal at times, and by turns incredible. I am pleasantly surprised my recent coffee consumption is going well. I LOVE COFFEE, I just rarely drank any for the past couple of years. Coffee has superior caffeine, and caffeine makes some of the side effects of my powerful medicines a bit more manageable. I am fully compliant with my psychiatric medications, but I do not have to like them.

I am on The Dell. Whatever it was doing earlier failed, and it is in the process of trying again. I like computers, possibly better than other devices, probably because I have used them much longer. I love this one, but I also hate it. Ambivalence seems to be a widespread trait in my existence. There is very little I only have one end of the feeling scale over. Catch me at the right time; I love everything. The wrong one and I would be hard-pressed to tell you a positive thing among everything in my life.

Will You

Will you hold me close
When I turn myself around,
Inside-out, upside-down,
Lose who I am – hokey-pokey like;
Without rhyme and lacking reason?
You should know this happens
In and out of season, without control.
My emotions are like an ocean
With waves that ebb and flow
Washing warm and cold, beware
Also, the undertow that drowns me
From time and again, in feelings
For which I have no use, refuse.
Will you find the patience
To weather moods, disturbances
In my equanimity? I hardly do
And it all belongs to me.
There are days I need to escape
The prison of what I am, but
My jailor is unwilling to grant any
Leave, breaking out an impossibility.
Writing though, and reading,
Grant me some serenity, words
Are love and I can find, perhaps,
Another searching soul with
Whom I have an affinity.
Come now, come near, and let us
Discover whatever is and will be,
It should all be okay, we shall see,
I will not give up the fight
As long as hope survives that you
Might deign to place your heart
Near the fullness of mine.

Composed here, live, out of nowhere. I admit I have been wrestling with inferiority. I have doubts about my worth and my sustainability. Those are near-constant, but I believe there is some talent in me. Fifty-three years of writing had to have some purpose.

Alex keeps telling me I should get rid of my books. It is killing me. I do not know how to explain what they mean, even the many I have not read. I read library books almost exclusively for years, but the books I own are a comfort to me. I have sent all the borrowed books back. Delving into these of mine has been a revelation, I fear I should have done it sooner. If he has his way, what a loss I shall suffer. I think this persistent demand of his is one reason depression has been unfailingly dogging me.

Let your whole being
Become Love’s celebration,
Your fascination.

As a prompt: Follow your emotion somewhere and create something that elucidates where yourself is at the moment. All my prompts are meant for creation with no particular medium restriction. Most creatives, which means all of us, are multidisciplinary.

I am grateful that this morning when Facebook malfunctioned and I had a full-blown panic attack, that I got myself under control with Alex’s assistance, and I recovered my account. Yeah, life is bizarre. When devices do not work, I go a bit unhinged.

Blessings to all of you, and may all your electronics function as advertised. Be well. Choose joy. Keep moving, it is harder to hit someone in motion. Carry on…