About a two weeks ago I got a new floor. The weekend before an outdoor shower was enclosed. The next day, walls were skim coated and finished. The day after that a prefabricated garage was purchased. Next came cabinets, one at a time. As usual with our own projects, we are making it up as go, so as one cabinet slid into place, the next was obvious.

Yesterday we put up paint samples and tile choices. I stained the shower. Today the tile is up and looks beautiful.

I feel like I might be boring you with this list, so I’m stopping before I name everything.

You get the idea.

Its been a bonanza of movement. Each thing has fallen easily into place.

There has been a weird amount of ease and flow for some reason.

The Red Sox went from last place to a crazy winning streak that tied a record.

Um.

My book has opened a few unexpected doors. I sold and donated almost my whole inventory on this coast. I sold one yesterday. To a school librarian!

Four weeks ago I started a regular meditation practice. Very regular. Its kind of my experiment.

It might be the only thing I’ve done differently.

I started after I taught a class on the introduction of meditation. I basically gave an overview of different methods and encouraged everyone to find something that felt good to them. I gave homework to set aside time in the morning or before sleep. No rules. Just whatever works to get quiet in the head. (even if its only for a minute or two).

I did my own homework.

I can’t take credit for the baseball, (obviously) or really any of the building. Some of my ideas were used. But I have had nothing to do with the speed or movement. I just kind of agree to go to Lowe’s when I’m invited.

I am happy. Found some peace in what used to feel like exile.

And weirdly, I’m seeing some original ideas fall into place, better even than envisioned.

Internal peace, dispite what is going on around me, is easier. Things don’t bother me like they used to. Everyone seems friendlier.

I’ve heard a many things about meditating. Vague things that seem nice, but not super enticing. Usually I am happy to try to meditate if its happening at yoga. It’s peaceful. I like it, but I get busy and distracted by life, I forget to prioritize.

Lately, I have been enjoying not feeling so homesick. I have enjoyed not getting lost in uncomfortable conversations. When disagreed with, I’m unusually fine. Even being misunderstood doesn’t phase me for long.

By week three, I arrived at a place where nothing had to change for me to feel fine. Truly, I was good.

But then,

Strangely,

everything started changing!

This must be an East coast boater thing.

I’ve never heard of it before, but everyone I mention it to, has. I’m the odd man out, because I didn’t know about these giant blocks of styrofoam. They look like ancient old trash that we found in the crawl space under the house.

What a surprising frenzy of interest was sparked on Facebook market place. People fought over them. I couldn’t imagine anybody wanting to buy such awkward, dirty, pocked slabs.

One lady hurried over and somehow managed to jam a bunch in her small car.

You know what they say about one person’s junk being another’s treasure. Giant blocks of dirty styrofoam. Its a desired find! Who knew!?

We have had a ongoing dialogue with the town over building permits. We now have a good education about what can and cannot be done on a property. Neighbors have been six years trying to get a remodel approved. Its a thing.

We also have had many back and forth conversations regarding building, water, electricity etc.

After the water drama of last year, I stay out of these conversations. Water was worth it, I haven’t looked back. I am glad every day, but it was tough.

Suddenly, I find myself in Lowes picking out cabinets and countertops. The floor we bought last year was installed in one day! Walls skim coated and finished! I now have the sink that I bought two years ago in a cabinet surrounded by counter!

Its a miracle in process!

Then today a garage was ordered. That’s another project.

I am amazed at the speed of all these things happening. It hasn’t been two weeks.

How is my long ago dream plan falling so perfectly into place?

With such ease? So fast?

I’ve been in a peaceful, detached mindset this year. More laid back. Less trying. Pretty much let go completely.

And now?

Who could have guessed I would have had this week?

Everything coming together better than I’d hoped.

Its warm, not raining, (though my garden and I genuinely appreciate a good summer rain), Its not hot, not windy or humid.

It’s lovely.

Also, I’m up in my attic studio starting yet another octopus painting.

Listening to something uplifting, while decent music plays from somewhere else.

Later, I’ll end up at the beach, probably in the water. Now that there’s an outdoor shower, salt water is no problem.

I even found a good summer book to read

Good sigh

Later on, there is a park concert, which means a picnic and music. An easy outing. Very casual and well organized.

Earlier I walked and did yoga.

I love days like today.

Summertime on the east coast. Pretty idealic. Always well appreciated by everyone!

So

I am enjoying my ‘octopus period’

Even if no one else seems to get it

I am oddly inspired to make painting after painting of…

well…

octopus after octopus

I’m sure my housemates think its crazy.

And maybe it is.

What I find interesting about myself, is how I can’t really get out of my possibly delusional perspective.

I like my paintings.

I think that they work.

I really do.

My last one is the most abstract and I think, the most successful. Not one other person (to date) shares this opinion.

So I could be wrong.

Yet. Wrong or not, I’m compelled to carry on.

Artists have struggled with this very concept for hundreds of years. Making art that isn’t well received and continuing to do it anyway has always been a thing. Where is my Gertrude Stein when I need her?

Is my work terrible?! Am I? Will I ever stop wondering this? Or could that be an odd part of the process?

Do others have to approve for it to be viable?

I remember back in competitive art school. Being correct, being acurate, being talented enough to justify being there, was the soup we lived in. These thoughts were important and relevant, (they seemed to be at the time) to all of us young students.

Now? I think more possibilities exist. I even believe contradictory conclusions can be true at the same time.

Art is weird.

So many factors go into creation. So many different outcomes occur, even simultaneously. Think of all the different trees there are in the world. None are actually ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. Even so, people have opinions.

About trees, about art about everything.

People have opinions because they have preferences. Preferences are good! They are defining and tangible, and even help show us who we are.

But opinions are opinions. Personal to each person.

No one taught us that we should try to please as many people as possible with our art, but few were immune to flattering words, especially from an instructor.

One student I remember had questionable skill and/or talent, plus he never nailed an assignment. Not once did he pose any competitive threat to anyone. He would show up day after day with his heavy handed rough interpretations of the teachers carefully articulated instructions. Tack them up with the rest of the classe’s and sit back nonchalantly as if daring anyone to question his work.

He was a little older and married and was the only one I knew who declared easily that he intended to be a studio artist. I hope he is ridiculously successful today. Someone should have hired him to teach us bravado.

Cultivating a healthy amount of not caring about other’s opinions is a good practice. In life, as well as in art. Anytime we lose motivation over letting another’s opinion influence us, we lose a little of something. I notice that even as I ‘fish’ for some positive feedback, I feel off.

There was a study about motivation that surprised researchers. They found that children who were praised and rewarded for doing something they liked doing, like coloring or playing ball, lost interest faster than kids who received no praise. Often the praised kids would quit entirely, the unpraised kids returned again and again and spent longer blocks of time.

As usual, I feel a lesson sinking in. Something about believing before the rest of the world catches up. How else can I step out into the unknown and make something original? Ironically, my three year old octopus idea is hardly feeling original lately.

But my art surely is.

I am not at all informed about where the planets are in the cosmos. I’m not even sure which ones are still planets, but lately I’ve been hearing a lot about Mercury going into retrograde.

So

I looked it up. ‘retrograde’ means what you think. Something moving in reverse. Backwards. Not forward.

Besides being a fun thing to say if someone is having a bad day, I never knew what it meant.

Cosmically, logically, it makes sense that not every thing is moving forward all of the time.

Artistically its pretty much how things are created. You start, you stop, you start other things, you go back, work out design issues, solve composition puzzles, go forward, go back, finish one thing, start another.

In art, in my process anyway, going backwards isn’t a negative. I don’t think it is in nature either. Plants rest, and start over every year.

In gardening, some years you cut a bush back to a much smaller version of itself for its health or to keep it flowering.

Maybe retrograde is a ceasing of moving forward, still moving, but like with finding balance, a little this way, a little that. Add here, edit there.

If I think too hard about this, backwards and forwards are only two directions, I have a mind that rotates things in every direction.

I suspect this was why learning to read was a little challenging. They taught me that the letter ‘d’ looked like this and it made this sound. In my head p,d,b and q (and when you wrote it, 9, were the same thing turned this way or that. q was different if you wrote it. Plus the 2D nature of the written word seemed both boring and to me, incomprehensible. I had no clue that decoded, it captured so much. Stories, beauty, ideas, all things I cared to know.

All tucked inside a forward, left to right moving code. For me learning to read was a true miracle.

I wonder if we sometimes think that if a thing is not moving in the ‘right” direction, it can’t work. (Not entirely untrue, reading only goes left to right, in the English language, of course)

Me flipping letters was not helpful in the first grade, but in other situations it isn’t a bad thing.

Mercury moving in reverse might be good for many reasons. A directional shift doesn’t have to be worrisome.

In life too much going one way is like too much of anything. I wonder if the discomfort is more because of the change part. We humans aren’t always comfortable with change. Even the idea can cause us grief.

So yes, Mercury did change directions and seems to be going backwards. I guess some planets do this, or appear to.

My unofficial opinion? I think its fine, changing direction is often good! It can be very good! Better than going too far and throwing off balance or harmony. For me, in art, that would be worse.

That is maybe what life is about?

One example: Canada geese

Big problem.

Huge.

I forget until, there they are again. Way down by the water, far far from the house. The neighbors are all annoyed. Nobody wants them messing up their grass.

G read that they don’t like laser pointers. (Whoever discovered this was not credited), but G ordered one. Sure enough, from a long distance, he aimed, the geese saw the green light and flew away.

And haven’t returned!

Before this, ideas were tossed around.

A few tried garden pinwheels, that had to keep being moved around. Or the sure bet, take turns chasing them off with a broom. I thought it was a conversation starter, How ‘bout those Canada geese! Like last year’s grub dilemma. The grubs were a slow to build issue that most denied. The Canada geese are impossible to ignore, unless you are me.

This year everyone has talked about GrubX

Grub killer was eventually spread for last year’s controversial grubs.

Then…

there is the grass itself. For a place that grows grass fairly naturally, I wouldn’t have guessed the conversational value of discussing lawn.

New grass has been seeded in all of the bare grub ravenged spots. This was an experienced five man crew of experts several hour long job. All the neighbors were out to watch.

We now need to keep it watered for fourteen straight days. 20 minutes, twice a day. No one sprinkler will hit all of the area. I can’t imagine how this will go. G has been busy repairing a hose, installing a double spriget with a timer.

How to describe the general anxiety?

First, watering was done by two sprinklers on the big lot and a watering can pass on the front and side. I am watching from afar since again I don’t understand. I did hear how exhausting the watering can method was though…

Somehow this evolved into a new 100 ft hose attached to a 75ft hose. The repaired hose didn’t hold (?) and was thrown away and now I can say first hand, that watering by hand with a sprayer in the wind and cold is a crummy job. (I can’t imagine the little watering can).

Its just wet and cold and takes a long time. Im not usually allowed to pitch in, but as the days go on all of us are.

Today everyone is glad for all day rain.

That is except for me. (and maybe G) Its barely 50 degrees and pouring. Ugh. I would, of course, perfer to water on a warm sunny day myself. I liked it when the side lot was accepted as non lawn and no one cared that it was always yellow in the summer, (for all of 70 plus years…)

Today, its almost June. I have on a sweater and a winter coat and a hat.

My cozy attic space is not cozy at all.

Which brings me to my own problem/solution.

I am setting up a studio space for myself and another artist. Too busy to work on it today, but its happening and soon. Computer is up and functioning…

Space!

Wasn’t it Ram Dos who said

‘We are just walking each other home’

Here we are just living our lives.

Did I agree before landing here on earth on some of it? Am I making parts of it up? Do people come and go with purpose?

I like to believe that its all a giant plan to witness, to see, to experience.

To feel and observe who I am as a human, who I am beyond my temporary humaness, and possibly who I am as part of the universal force of everything.

There’s this fascinating part of knowing, without being able to wrap my human brain around knowing, without being able to explain it.

I know.

I know when I run into certain people or places or experiences. I see myself for one quick moment, maybe because I am seen or I resonate or my heart skips a beat.

And I see THEM!

Then the invisible veil falls back into place and I am caught back up in my very captivating human story.

Somehow, something trips my memory, and for one second I know that I know.

Maybe I need a witness to see, to remember.

To help me get through the tough parts, to mark the triumphs, but mostly to walk me in the direction home.

By home, I think I mean who each of us ultimately is. Our true us-ness.

Warmer days, short thunderstorms, ice cream, flowers, evening gardening and fresh cut grass. Sand, salt water, sunscreen and bug spray. Summer is almost here!

It’s easy to forget the charm of this little town when bitter cold weather lingers, but then, as if over night, the flowers and foliage take over. The sun shines long into the evenings and every day becomes a good beach day.

New England rolls out it’s charm in full and no one can resist.

This town is pure nostalgic summertime.

…we really can wake up and live within what is,

but better?

What if our present reality has everything we need to live our best life.

What is circumstances don’t have to change, because our perspective can?

So, there I was, just the other day, reeling from a number of uncomfortable things, when someone decided to offer me some advice.

It was of course, not advice I could take.

Why this irked me I’m not sure, but without thinking, I said yes, that would be the most obvious solution.

Oh aren’t we all living a life that seems easy for other’s to figure out? So easy, so obvious, but…

What if it doesn’t matter? What if every irksome, uncomfortable experience is nothing more than an earthly exercise;

Just another way ro observe ourselves and maybe get better at being?

How am I doing?

Well

On that day, not so well, (to the human eye) but here is what I realized:

I was having a moment. It passed. It seemed worse then it was because of how I was thinking about it. I saw it. I saw the part I played. I understood why I thought the way I did.

Understanding helped me be compassionate, compassion helped me lighten up.

Compassion for the others, but also compassion for my struggling self.

So for a split second, I stepped back and saw myself. Struggling, impatient, uncomfortable.

With kind eyes and calm confidence I knew it was already passing.

I wonder if being human is just a lot of waking up and fallng back to sleep. Physically and mentally.

Remember

Forget

Remember

Forget.

Impossible to stay awake all the time.

The eighth limb of the yoga sutra philosophy is called ‘Samadhi’. Loosely translated, its a fluctuating state of bliss or realization of all. What is, is what is, and we are okay inside of it.

That was good for five minutes of enlightenment.

And now, Good night.