[L, diary, ephēmeris] 1) BLOG

"The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live."
~Flora Whittemore~

“The Latin word limin, stands for the threshold of a doorway.
Derived from the word limin, the term, liminality, refers to a "threshold period."
This is a time of transition and transformation; a betwixt and between,
no-longer but not-yet. A person in liminality no longer participates in the normal activities in daily life but slides into a world where the "rules" no longer apply. Soon after the passagethe individual will reenter daily life where rules and obligations again apply.”

—Dr. J. Michael Stitt—

Lest anyone think that I am going to continue in the same sad vein as a couple of my last few posts, 'No worries'...I'm out and away on the other side of the doorway, feeling good.  Feeling EXCITED, feeling great relief!  Which is not to ignore a startled bemusement that the recent struggle to come to grips with a situation has been the catalyst for introducing a new muse into my life.  Oddly enough, it was the seeming closing of a door that produced this renewed burst of creative energy (is that an oxymoron?)

The gradual realization of this change began when I forced myself to make a journal entry (BUT I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY!)  I knew that just putting words down on the page would aid the 'house cleaning' of confused emotions and unclear thoughts I'd been laboring under. I needed to bring them into focus by writing of the events.

Great slabs of boring paragraphs, obscuring clay, dropped under the carving knife of a borrowed pen.  Slowly paring down the volume of words into single sentences, they began to reveal a shape, a solid link to recent conflicts that, as I continued to slowly shave even closer,  revealed a large concept I hadn’t considered: the differences between left brain and right brain styles of expression.

So, being a primarily right brain person, I wanted to move out of the left brain arena of writing or verbalizing ideas to express my experience.  I wanted to elevate the situation out of the linear, make something bigger and more universal than something so small and personal. I wanted to make Art out of the tattered feelings I’d been having; make even a simple patchwork quilt, just to put them to good use.

What visuals would accomplish that? How would I present a sympathetic picture of inherent difficulties when opposite ways of communicating encounter each other?

What EXACTLY would this left-brain person look like?

Immediately I saw an image of an Alphabet Person, saw the recognizable outline of a verifiably nice person whose entire body would be composed of colorful testimonials I could copy/paste like tattoos.

YES!!!  It could be done with Photoshop. Right!  Photoshop could do it...ah, well, maybe…haven’t used it for a long time…but it couldn’t take too long learn the technique, could it?

Okay, that's enough to work out later; what about the other half of this conflict?  What would a right-brain person look like? Oh, something full of gorgeous fire leaping about, sensual but not demonic, brilliant of course, but tender, too, with quietly astute insights for balance...

Hmm, well...can work that one out later, too...the breakthrough's the important thing, I gloated as I packed up my papers, returned the pen to the waitress and left the café, outward bound for mundane tasks of buying boat supplies.

And it has been a breakthrough.  Even though disconcerting to realize a Muse might masquerade as a Nemesis.   I restore Comfort by quoting May Sarton:

"The dialogue is not with the Muse but with oneself."

“…the Muse destroys as well as gives life, does not nourish,pierces, forces one to discard, renew, be born again."

“The Muse is always a question—that’s what sets up the dialogue.”

"Every visitation of the Muse is disturbing."

I will be writing further on this current topic, continuing to process this engagement with a Muse.  Already the ideas have gone beyond solely visual…MUSIC, written and audible could convey even more expressively this experience...wouldn't it be wonderful puzzle to attempt a score written with faces for the notes, a conversation between them in a musical lexicon? 

Creativity feeds on itself, doesn’t it?

I'm in the midst of writing another blog post, one that is a bit complicated so am not sure how long it will take me to upload.  So, not wanting to lose the momentum of excitement about again having focus, I'm going to add an interim  piece of artwork done when my youngest sister and I lived on our first boat.  It was a nineteen-twenties-something motor yacht, and I was on it to be sure the bilge pumps continued working.  They'd go off about every minute, for about a minute-and-a-half.

What? Me, worry? Nope, not even for a minute.  I was too busy eking our meager living allowance from random sources while trying to keep an eye on my sixteen-year old sister who was prone to visiting a house full of, shall we say, persons of dubious character, to even realize the potential for sinking at the dock.

I love all three of my sisters but Denise, the youngest, always tapped into my nurturing instinct more than the others.  She's grown out of the miserable years of teens and early twenties, into a truly gifted woman, mother, and business person, but in those years before she found her calling (working with animals, large and small) she wrote poetry.

While we were together on the boat, I made a collage with one of her poems that, to this MINUTE, forty years later (!) still fills me not only with the poignancy of the message, but AWE that someone so young had the skills to see and compose it:

Say Goodbye

to the foam of illusion

for the pain

is too fine for the flowers

and the wine

too sweet for the mouth

of unborn time

Recently had an epiphany when I was in the 'big city' of Dumaguete: I was driving  along the coastal road  that divides slum/rural from urban.  In a hurry to get a block of ice at the factory, I'd swerved into my left-hand turn from paved street onto dirt and, though slightly slowed down, was still moving fast enough to contemplate hurtling down the rutted road to the plant. Sighting the rocky gulleys of recent rain water before me, sudden drifts of ancient driving advice challenged my intention:  was racing over the tops of bumps really the best way, or was slowing down to wallow and bump through them, wiser?

Or was I confusing the skills of driving a car with that of a dinghy?

Crashing head-on with the Evel Kneivel approach came an echo of Bill's none-too-pleased observation ("Pedal to the metal!") of my usual driving...so, OKAY, what-the-heck, I slowed down, took every mini-swale and hillock at a snail's pace...and gently rolled into the yard ages later with the insight that my life's recent problems were exactly like that:  I had been loosening my teeth and jarring every bone in my body by attempting to slam through and over, as fast as possible, the recent death of Bill’s/our closest friend, along with the sixth anniversary of his own passing.  Surrendering to an undulating terrain of grief was akin to the near-despair I'd just experienced while creeping gently, with frustratingly slow progress, over rough ground until a level plane (resolution) was reached, was obviously the only sane answer.

There are big deaths and little deaths in life; the big ones are usually Changes that are not Choices.  They are the hardest to be patient with.  Changes that we did not ask for, expect, or even deserve. Those are the hardest to accept, to learn to live with, to make peace with; to incorporate into our life with any hope of future joy.

Traversing darkened valleys is not something easily asked of others to share.  Especially if they extend any distance longer than a simple rutted road to the ice house.  Though sympathy and compassion comes freely from close friends, it is still not something asked for if needed frequently.  So, in the acceptance of needing to go slowly and gently with oneself, silence becomes the means when words can no longer come.  When even creativity goes into hibernation.

Creativity, though, is the ultimate healer.  Even while not particularly able to be creative myself, reading or seeing or hearing the creative expressions of others lights the way.  They are uplifts, simple moments of revival, freshening breezes to inhale along with views of possibilities awaiting.  Visions of feeling alive again, as the poem of David Whyte’s did for me, titled SWEET DARKNESS. 


 I had found this poem while Googling another, at this website, and made a screen shot of it.  I was careful--respectful--of including the attribution, had added it to this post even though I was not sure if I was abusing the permission granted prior but assumed it is okay if I was not financially profiting by its inclusion. 

Then I checked and realized I was, regretfully, not allowed to do so.  I highly recommend clicking on the link (at this website) to read it, as well as the other pieces Elizanda de la Sota has on her website. 

David Whyte's website was especially worthwhile to visit, adding even more positive input to my returning  joy of living in the Philippines, aboard PILAR; my daily life afloat and ashore.  Life here has not grown smaller with my losses; it is alive with projects so impossibly big that my eyes widen with the thrill of imagining them really happening!  WHEW!  It is good to feel this way again...so instead of feeling like this: 

...it is very much like a landfall after a long passage:

...and the excitement of exploring what lies within: