shift, nearer

Yes, I went a little bit silent. Despite the sweet encouragements of the wordpress world (‘you’re on a [insert number here] day streak!’ I got absorbed into another direction.

I have been making a rhythm path into my creativity, but also, I notice now, my living.

As my creative practice is continually also an investigation into the nature of existence, the living and the art are closely intertwined. Deep shifts have been going on in my own deep life, old stories have been moving to take up new positions, new stories may or may not be being born, but they will only be able to be born if space is made for them.

Such a work is one of great tenderness and almost perpetual bewilderment, perseverance yes, and perhaps this is why this has been such a focus.

But now the shift has completed, or is completing, and then a new space is opening up. As usual the space comes with a sense of dizzying exposure alongside the delight. What will fill this space, what discoveries will get made, who will arrive to commune with it, how to protect it? It is a space for tiny flutterings and glimmerings yet as with all tender spaces most likely the giants of the land will be waiting to sneak in forbiddingly.

So I go gently and write and try to inhabit peace and trust. And to soak up and reveal in the creativity of a moment of blossoming freedom that comes rarely in life and is a gift of great power and beauty.

the studio inside, threshold

Persevering with the studio rhythm as a path to the studio inside is starting to pay off I notice.

Something that I did in the real studio rhythm was to record my morning piano playing, and then later to play it to myself. I am not sure what made this idea occur to me, because never before have I listened to my own playing, still with mistakes, hesitations and an overly long pause needed to turn the pages, as a source of joy. It took long years as an adult to recapture any of the delight of playing as a child, so painful was the décalage between my old competence and new ineptitude. And to actually record and listen back to myself was excruciating.

Yet here I am, and there is something in my own music. It’s mysterious to me.

So yesterday for the first time I played my music back to myself in the more ordinary setting of the apartment. I was a bit disconsolate and needed something to soothe the mean fears that had crept in to try to nibble on a new joy. And this playing filled the apartment with fully-human-with-all-her-errors-being. There is something in myself that is trying to tell something, to offer something to myself. What is it? Mystery.

But this, I realise, is part of the perseverance of the studio inside. And the playing of this yesterday made me feel today like I am on a threshold, and that soon I will be able to more fully live my creativity into the summer, even without the much longed for material studio. The elements are nearly all in place.

(I will know I am there when I am able to paint.)

persevering

It’s more than a week now since I left the studio. To hold a place for the studio inside continues to be a work.

However, I am persevering with the studio rhythm. Even though I am not making it all the way to to the kind of things I was doing in the studio, I am making a perseverance in the first steps. Surely soon I will break through to a new depth?

An assessment of the current state:

Most days:
Piano (Divenire is sounding more and more beautiful)
Writing: journal, blog, documentation

Absent:
Photoing
Painting and poems (I am writing some but they feel less fluid than the ones from painting)
Collage and found poetry (the most lighthearted work, which counter-intuitively needs more time; also I don’t have access to a photocopier, I’ve just noticed)

My bag of artist things (paints, pencils, brushes, photographs, camera) lies neglected in the corner of a cupboard.

On the other hand, a lot of productive things have been done in the realm of chores and catching up with people after crazy work. And I’ve helped a friend surprisingly move house.

In times like this I need to remember to treasure and nurture the times there are and not fret (note to self).

So then now I continue on my way with persevering.

bloom

Did a bud unfurl
in the garden?

Silence, birdsong,
intermittent conversation
overheard, on phone,
passing by

What was it that
held us
steady against the wind?

Branches trembling
Grasses shimmer
a frisson of petals,
scent

You held peace for us
eyes closed, a prayer?
mine roamed everywhere,
wondering
stealing a peek
at you who had
quite astonishingly
arrived.

Who are you to me?
Who will you be?
What were we doing there?
A beginning, a wish
full or frail?

Is a bud unfurling?
I cannot trust my senses,
hope.

descent

I find myself
long ago,
remains of memory
scraps

What were you to me?
I ask him,
whom I never saw again.

And you, who meant so much to me
at the time
what were you? a vanishing?

I pick my way between the
haunting presences,
strangely comfortable and familiar
they don’t answer
neither did they

passive
controlling
hiding in their baggage
I poke at them a final time
what have you to say for yourself?
you?

silence, their ancient
language, patrolling my
invisibility, eliminating me
slowly
colluding,
familiarity chokes me

Who did this to you?
they don’t reply
I forgive them.