78. Atom
How we allow things to be small. Embracing the bad days; a moody animated vignette; Portland, unexpectedly. Oh, and a killer plane-salad recipe.
“The truth is, we know so little about life, we don’t really know what the good news is and what the bad news is.”
—Vonnegut
It’s almost September. Fall is here. Yeah, I don’t know how that happened, either.
The heat persists, stutteringly. There’s an unmistakable feeling that comes in through the gaps. Now that I’ve an idea in hand, I don’t sleep well. I wake later and later, now getting up close to 8am. This makes me feel inconsolably and infuriatingly two hours behind, all day long. My mind pulls ahead like an errant dog, seeking meaning and resolution; it harrasses delicate germs with “Is it working?!,” or “This is dumb, abort.” I’m constantly pulling it back and showing it the stick. Let small things be small; let them stay that way for a while. To reinforce the point, I return to exercises, breaking things down to the atom.
In the studio
It seems a sort of cosmic rebalancing, how a period of productivity often elides into one of impotence. I had a particularly bad work day last week. I spun in place for the length of it, a toppled mechanical solider making circles on its side. There’s little worse than that kind of paralysis in the studio, with each minute flouting effort and passing without product, doubts and indecisiveness both seed and consequence.
A healer once asked me why I look at things that way, why I’m so uncomfortable being in place. I guess I see it as lacking direction, I said. I associate spinning with being lost.
His brows furrowed. Stillness is a precursor to orientation, though, isn’t it? If you don’t take stock of where you are, there’s no way to *not* be lost. He paused. Your resistance is what causes the spinning. Give yourself a chance to be “stuck.” Being here is your only job.
Then, he laughed. Enjoy it!
I get this a lot.
One thing about animating is that it forces me to root. It expands time, too, and both of these things calm a body (and the dog) down a little. Here’s a sequence that I’m thinking of using as a base for some experiments. A minute of process at 1x, then 20x, then 1x again:
Playing with slow, almost imperceptible, changes:
Running it with only one eye animated triggered a lot of interesting thoughts for further exploration (I know, this is a getting into some obscure corners of my brain):
In other news
Last time, I mentioned that folks were lifting stuff from TLB (and selling it without permission). That has me thinking about making changes to the way I share content here. I could move more of it behind the paywall, which I’ve not wanted to do. Maybe Ruminations (which I haven’t given much love to since inception) is every other, Member-only issue? With more personal, holistic behind-the-scenes.
TLB is about the big picture, about a life centered around making things. I’ve been wanting to write more regularly (and personally) for Members anyway about routine, health…the stuff of day-to-day life that’s necessary to support the creative one. (Subscribers can easily opt out of Ruminations, btw.)
Thanks for your patience while I figure this out.
Members, read on to watch the vignette with sound. Plus, where I traveled to last week, and the killer plane-salad recipe for mile-high transit.