Quote of the Day

God turns you from one feeling to another
And teaches you by means of opposites
So that you will have two wings to fly
Not one.

     - Rumi

Two Houses

I have two distinct energy cycles and sometimes I call them my two houses. I move in and get accustomed to one house and then, after about eight weeks, things rattle and shift and I find myself landed in the other house. This repeats throughout the year and never ceases to amaze me. I get adjusted to my new house after a few weeks, and I convince myself that this time my understanding is so thorough that my cycle will never drastically switch again. Part of me always wishes this were true and that I could decide to live in one house and be done with it but that would be like trying to control the tides or the phases of the moon. What I can do is keep taking notes to understand and accept and maybe someday even love my cyclical nature. Over the years my husband and I have devised a language for exploring this phenomenon without putting a value judgment on it or oversimplifying it. We call it the cycle of receive mode and transmit mode.

Transmit Mode

Transmit mode is tons of fun. I am energetic, spontaneous, confident, and I feel inspired in a sensory way (sound, touch, taste, smell, vision). I can hardly keep up with my desire to communicate what I am experiencing, and I feel a geyser of radiant energy propelling out of every pore. I am constantly making associative leaps in my thinking and having moments of magical thinking. My energy is on full-blast and at the end of the day I'll fall asleep in seconds, waking up super-energized. I have to make sure I get proper amounts of sleep by keeping track of hours on my calendar, especially in the summer months, because in transmit mode I have no sense of time, and three hours in bed can feel like a full night of sleep. I can be distracted and impatient, with loins full of energy. I'll walk for miles or swim. This energy and clarity and self-assuredness goes on for a while and could even dip into arrogance if I was not careful. It seems there is always a bit of anger when things begin to rattle. That's the clue that I'm shifting! Then I fall into sadness and land in receive mode.

Receive Mode

When I'm first in receive mode I am exhausted, haunted, and full of insecurity, empathy, vulnerability, and despair. I feel like I am a terrible person, radioactive and poisonous, and I should hide from people, or I am just annoyed by everyone and I should hide from people. I move more slowly and can feel hopeless, like life is a bad deal and I want out. I am not so physical and sensory. My energy and appetite are not distracting. My dog seems to have more energy than I remember, my house fills up with dust bunnies and junk-mail, I retrieve, with wonder and appreciation, loaves of bread from the freezer that I baked on the energetic transmit-mode days. Sometimes I can't imagine holding my heavy saxophone let alone playing it. I crave sleep and dread communicating. Then I adjust to the energy shift and begin to level off and appreciate the good qualities of this state. I am extremely receptive in a particular way. I read books, I can concentrate steadily on playing music, painting, and writing because I am receiving, taking in. I am also receiving things from my inner world. It is a reflective, conceptual, imaginative vision. I am confronted by my old belief system, the one I learned from infancy, which states that I am a terrible person. This may be why at times it is so excruciating to be in receive mode. But receive mode is the perfect time to recognize the flaws in my belief system, and laugh at myself when I can.

Flow

I have been working on completing a show of my recent paintings that is now up. A painter friend asked about my process of painting, and I've decided to share my response.

The journey is unique for everyone. That said I will say that I too get fired up on starting things because the possibilities are still open-ended. I often start a whole bunch of pictures so when I feel frightened that I might ruin a good start, or I get impatient, or precious, or boxed-in, all of which happens on a regular basis, I have other pictures to turn to. I will often abandon a picture for six months or a year to let go of it so when I return I am less precious and I can dive back in. Sometimes I paint a solid color over a picture I dislike and then it becomes a blank canvas again, full of promise (with added texture).

Without a deadline to push me it can be very difficult for me to finish the pictures or know when I am done. Booking a show can help make completion happen. I didn't realize until recently how crucial it is to have receivers view what you have done to complete the process. It also helps to work in a medium that you really like because then no matter how crazy it gets, you still have the sensory reminder of the materials you love, and that can be delightfully grounding. The thing I love and strive for is to be engaged in "flow". Then I am fully immersed in the process. It can take weeks of rough rides to reach flow, and then when I find it I don't want to let go of it. A painter I knew said painters get hooked on flow. Probably the way musicians get hooked on the groove and athletes get hooked on the zone. Perhaps it's all variations of the same thing; that place where life expands and deepens from the magic we're engaged in.

Happy Chinese New Year!

It's the Year of the Boar.

When I was a junior in high school my alternative high-school teachers supported yet another "art project" that involved running away from home. I had escaped before on various art projects and they supported me all the way. This time I moved to Chinatown, Manhattan, to an apartment on Mott Street. The rent was 150 dollars a month. I got a job as a cashier at a health-food store on Bleeker Street in the Village. I would work nights and then run home through Little Italy to Chinatown. The apartment was one tiny room with a tall ceiling. The turquoise wallpaper was covered with a busy white print. I got vertigo just sitting in there. I felt like I was in an elevator going up and down. There was a tiny stove and a tiny bathroom and two windows. The apartment next door was the same size and there were a dozen people living in it. I was terrified, but even more terrified of living in my parents' house. The gods protect the innocent.

Quote of the Day

Art is a personal expression no matter how much or how little it covers of the universe. Whatever it encompasses, it has to be a sincere vision. The technical skill with which it is created is essential for its success. I see, in every artist, a priest of his own religion who wants to deliver a sermon in order to collect his believers. The places where he exposes his beliefs are art institutions and galleries. There are many priests but hardly any saints within a given epoch.

I believe in complete freedom of expression. You have to choose your own god and interpret him in your own way. But you have to be sincere about it if you want your prayers to be appreciated and remembered.

A striking balance of intellectual and emotional experience makes great artwork. An original artwork will delight the responsive viewer.

     - Tibor de Nagy

A Woman's Place is in the Groove

I took this title from an article about a band leader who mentions that women make great bari sax players!

We are having a sleet and ice storm! And the northern part of the state, where I live, has shut down!! Hurray!!! We finally got one!!

We made buckwheat crepes to celebrate the snow day.

Happy Valentine's Day!! Eat a chocolate!

In the Woods

I've been dropped in the woods with my paints. Painting is my big demon and I have to stick my head in the demon's mouth every day to complete the pictures. The demon dance is like playing chess with the devil. But this has always been true. Some days I can outrun the terror and some days it outruns me. Some days it's a picnic and some days it's a truce. But it's always a jump off a cliff. By comparison, playing with words and making tones on my horn are usually refreshing. Maybe I should be more grateful for the painting demons, for making words and music fun.

Quote of the Day

I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. I am still pursued by a neurosis about work inherited from my father. A day where one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room, not try to be or do anything whatever.

     - May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

Cow Doc

There's a shortage of large-animal vets according to today's NY Times. Much livestock has become dead stock. A C-section for a Chihuahua pays more than rescuing a calving cow, and this is part of the problem. Perhaps I should ditch everything and become a cow doc.

Touching the Brush

Once I slay the myriad demons to get to my easel, I can sometimes enjoy the dramatic adventure of making a picture. Painting can be a retreat, a sensory wordless world of colors and textures. But I always need a deadline to force me to finish things.

Quote of the Day

This quote is taped to my computer monitor:

But when at last I wrote my first words on the page, I felt an island rising beneath my feet like the back of a whale. As more and more words emerged, I could finally rest: I had a place to stand for the first time in my life. The island grew, with each page, into a continent inhabited by people I knew and mapped with the life I lived.

     - Jimmy Santiago Baca, from Working in the Dark:
       Reflections of a Poet of the Barrio

Mercury's Rising!

We just saw Mercury in the sky with our naked eye. Have a look, at 5:45 PM, from wherever you are! It will only be this clearly visible at this time for another week. Look at the horizon where the sun sets. It's below and to the right of Venus. Mercury's rising and the temps are dropping!

I visited the calves today at Wrights' Dairy Farm. They are so cute with their pink snouts. They were mooing as the farmer banged out the ice from their white plastic gallon buckets and gave them fresh water and food. The calves sounded just like those mooing toys little kids have.

One of the bakers at Wright's is a star gazer and she points out the constellations and moon phases to her baking comrades. She starts her day in the dark, looking up! Cow jumped over the moon?

Quote of the Day

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

     - Joseph Campbell

The Lover

Finding your instrument is like finding a lover. As a dancer I've always felt that the drums and bass are the heart, legs, and lower torso of a song.

Good for Your Age

I realized today that as a musician, I am not good for my age. If I were fifteen, I'd be good for my age, but I'm 46, and a beginner. Perhaps when I am eighty, dancing in rockette shoes playing my bari sax with long white hair, rosy cheeks, and sparkling eyes, I'll be good for my age!

Second Quote of the Day

How can anyone be expected to govern a country with two hundred and forty six cheeses?

     - Charles de Gaulle

How I Feel

The ten-degree air creates skin warmth for me, like when swimming in a cold pond. Heat radiates out when I'm surrounded by the dry cold air, and it feels great on my teeth.

My mouth tingles after playing the sax. It's the same sensation on my lips as how my feet feel after I've taken off roller skates!

Sometimes I feel like a human lollipop and I have to hide from peoples' attention.

SOUND HORN!!!

My husband and I found a SOUND HORN sign by accident the other day. It is painted eight feet up from the ground at the base of a gigantic brick chimney in Fall River in among the mills. The sun hits it perfectly at 2:30 PM!! The Bronchodilators need a group photo here.