Day 120 - The Angels Come

Yesterday the help I required appeared to me. It came in the form of reminders. One reminder manifested as a gentleman eating take-out chicken in his parked car outside the shop. I was leaning in the doorway when he asked me if the poster hanging in our window was an 'energy board'. I told him what the poster was actually and then asked what an energy board was. He told me he liked to drive around the country side until he got lost, he liked that, he said. He once stumbled upon an energy healing clinic that worked with kids, autistic kids, everybody. They have these energy boards you put your hands on and they align your chakras. I told him about my recent Reiki weekend, gave him a business card and asked him to return next time he was in the area getting chicken.
    The next reminder came in the form of a friendly repeat visitor to the store, a man who has made his living consolidating take-out menus. He asked how business was and I told him the truth. He asked if we do online sales and I sheepishly said, no, not yet. Well, c'mon ! he says, you have to. So I made the decision to give this a fair shot. My partner made it her project, the online shop, but got sidetracked by having a child. I'm done in the shop almost everyday and can easily get to it after a few small steps are taken. As the man left he reminded me about my slow wednesdays, 'mercredi web!' he called out while leaving.
    So two instances related somehow to take out food helped me. They helped me decide what to do. I will form the online shop allowing us to transition away from brick and mortar, supplement our income and deal with our collections. And I will integrate my interest in energy work with the rest of my life.
    Today I received a thoughtful and positive review of my latest book from a prestigious American magazine in my field. This sealed the triumvirate of interests shouting at me to continue and continue strongly. So far it breaks down like this:
    1) Draw, write and publish
    2) Collect and sell
    3) Energy work and health

Nomination

I was nominated for a Quebecois comic book prize this year. The gala was held in a posh night spot on the other end of town. I felt it was proper form to attend even though I was exhausted from a long day. Taking the metro there, I thought I'd be late but arrived early enough to grab a seat at my publishers table. I was treated to a pint and sat with friends as the short ceremony begun. My sausage sandwich was too spicy and I didn't win the award. I was only a small bit disappointed and decided it best to walk home. The clear night air did me good and I avoided the busier streets. Montreal in the cool spring evening is gorgeous. The trees are all lush, in sharp contrast to a few short weeks ago when all was barren from a long brutal winter.
    I walked home and thought about working harder. The book that won belongs to a friend and is a marvel of intuitive storytelling. It can easily serve as a reminder for me to loosen up a bit more and follow my nose, not be so high strung and determined to make sense. Freak out a bit more, as it were. I also thought on my walk home that perhaps I overvalue my talent. I am prone to thinking how great I am, easily confusing the thoughts I've had with my actual output. This hit home when I started musing upon a street campaign using a particular local motif. A short block later, there it was, stuck to the street signs, some one else had manifested the idea.
    I tend to daydream a whole heck of a lot more than produce. I manifest but not as much as I imagine I do. Too often I have seen ideas I thought of stare back at me, the work of other hands. I must only look at my actual output and not my potential in weighing my worth as an artist. I still haven't bought the paper I need to begin my next book. A book that will be better than the last one. A book that better be. To be better, the artist must relax into the task, create a work from joy and not perceived audience expectation. I think I can do it.

Alchemy Of The Shoebox

My purging gets followed by new acquisitions. I have a bit of buyer's remorse for one over-large item. On the plus side I also have been given a whole whack of new items, some keepers, some pass-alongers. Easy come, easy go.
    Matter proliferates.
    New things are exciting and beautiful. Garage sale season is upon us. I am confronted daily with my desires and my failings. It is my job to accumulate and sell items but I must also be wary. Matter multiplies faster than it dissolves away into money.
    This week I have reduced some vital collections greatly. These gestures are instrumental for me, they signify gaining control over a compunction to collect thoughtlessly, to value things reactively, as if simply because I've collected something there is an inherent value there. Wrong.
The value must be revisited. I must check in with myself and see why it is that I'm keeping something. Maybe what once was precious is now weighty and crude. Maybe what once was a drop in the bucket is the star of the show. And so on.
    I will continue to refine, to boil away, to distill until all I am left with is gold.
    First with my stuff, so that I'll have a clue what to do with my soul.
   

Starting Right Now

Do I have the time to show up at the office and churn out a short paragraph about my thoughts and feelings ? Do I have the time to moisturize my face after working outside with sun beating down and pallets of earth moved across alleyways? Do I have the time to worry about Antarctica and the ice sheets and the people and Hydro Quebec and radical skepticism and ill informed rationalism and people who think way too much ? Do I have the time to consider and reconsider and reconsider still my contribution to what seems like a confused and collapsing civilization? Do I have the time to make a comic book and dream of a career in the arts instead of selling everything I have and moving to a small cabin in the countryside?

    Ask me what I would do if I had five years to live and I wouldn't answer 'what I'm doing now' so why am I doing what I'm doing now instead of what I'd do if I had only five years to live ?
    Tell me about it. Tell me about my choices and my decisions and my set backs and cop outs and excuses and fears and paralysis and devil you know. Devil you know will strangle every last breath out of you, five years or no. And by you I mean me.

    Here we are accumulating garbage for the big parade. Accumulating garbage to tuck into the loose corners of our coffins. And coffins ! What an extravagance. We'd be so lucky to get a nice lacquered wooden box to rot in. Some folks never get the option. They sink into the field where they are struck down, maybe thrown into the ravine with the others.

    Sure, go back to school to get a masters degree, join the post docs in line for food and clean water. Wait for the corporate overlords to have their ghost of Christmas past moment, wait for Dick Cheney to shudder at his reflection and take it all back, take it all back, restore the droned children to life, restore the forest to it's majesty, restore the women to their humanity.

    Let's work a tad harder, let's do a little spring cleaning all year round, let's whip it out and get it on, let's high five until the sun rises, let's sort the recycling, reuse the reusables, take out the trash, forgive our shitty neighbours, rejoice with our cousins and see where that takes us.

    This is a moment of missives, this is the time for all times, we've made so many children, let's scrub the sidewalks for them so we don't have to pick glass shards out of their kneecaps. Let's turn off the power so they can breathe. Let's stop with the filth so they can eat some decent food and make their teenage parties something not tinged with ragged desperation born of hopelessness.

    We'll turn around in circles until we straighten out this mess. We'll pull the plug and wear extra sweaters in the winter. We'll collect family members to live with us. We'll turn this boat around, I swear, and plant gardens in every cop car.

    Starting now, starting right exactly now.

Me, Myself & I

Little bearded heads, simply drawn, speaking text, unpanelled, 6 or more to a page, narrating action that isn't seen, memoir, opinion. Subtle differences in the shape of the face and expression of the features moves the reader's eye along. The text is without balloon, loose next to the drawing, short bursts. The shape of the face can change radically, the head can reference these changes in the text, formalist experiments that are easy to read. The head can refer to other cartoons, other characters can burst in and talk back to the head. Other characters can blaze a trail ahead of the bearded head and tell other tales.
    Two bunny creatures, names withheld for the time being speak in snippets and solo words, rife with inside jokes and wry nods to each other. They engage in a half telepathic dialogue, finishing each other's sentences, riffing and making word plays. They are simple contour drawings, text spoken by each critter directly above. They form sentences rather than panels, sometimes they are living in discrete spaces, two heads a panel, four panels a page, maybe more.
    A finely rendered little ceremonial magician embarks on a quest. Detailed pencil work, replete with smudging and erasing as graphic tools, four panels to a page, each panel originally drawn at four by six inches. The world this character lives in is a small town, plenty of greenery, parks and old brick walls. His home has many rooms, hard wood floors and ritual objects. Furniture is zen hippie. Unlike the other two proposals above,
he has two books to his credit, one full length graphic novel the other a collection of shorts.
    Do I here 'stop inventing', ie: instead of launching into unknown territory, I make my next graphic novel using characters and a cartoon universe that already exists in print, reinforcing the brand, as you'd say. The temptation to somehow weave all proposals into one work sounds good in theory (maybe) but may also be a disaster in reality. Better the straightforward production, low on razzle dazzle and high in storytelling.
    I apologize for using this forum to outline and clarify my intentions regarding graphic novel projects. It is useful for me to do so. This is a journal of sorts, and I'm writing simply to maintain the habit and by chance, maybe hone my skills. This next big project in comics is much on my mind and I need to clarify my many conflicting thoughts about it. Scribbled notes aren't cutting it anymore, I have many of those. This process of writing about what I may do puts my thoughts in order, one after the other. I'm banking that at night, while I sleep, the proper decision will surface.

My first full length graphic novel was published by a house unfamiliar with the form and unfamiliar with how to sell it. Granted, it was a silent book and possibly quite oblique for people who don't make a point of reading comics. The book that followed it employed the same character and was a small run of three hundred copies. It was a collection of shorts that possibly didn't have enough breathing room between them and so came off crowded and possibly confusing. My very first comic book which came out years earlier than both of the ones mentioned above was a collection of radically different strips that may have made a groovy wtf reading experience but also didn't give the reader enough of any one thing.
    This upcoming and so far hypothetical fourth book cannot be doomed to obliquity. It would be good if it was easily read, simply enjoyed and provoked wonder enough to be reread. I am forced to admit that by over planning I get anxious and that if I simply trust the process and begin the final work straight away, a decent enough story will emerge. My one recurring issue is that I am starting to think that text in the body of the book may enable a wider audience. I am not convinced that silent books by my hand are not dismissed as too difficult to read or to 'get'. In my experience, many folks don't 'get' my work whereas the very few really 'get' it. For what's it's worth, I'd like more getting to happen.
    I have a possible publisher lined up and I'd like to provide something that they will feel confident is a book they can reasonably sell. Anything too inaccessible I may as well publish myself in a tiny run rather than blow a chance at wider distribution with something that doesn't sell or is limited to a small audience. At the same time of course, I am incapable of making a teen soap drama.
    Thanks to anyone who actually read this over long and fully naval gazing post. I am becoming overly self conscious about how often the word 'I' pops up in these missives.

Fear Of Threshold

Did I have enough fun while I was single and childless ? Did I misspend my youth adequately ? Did I party in a way that my 90 year old self will look back and crack a contented smile ? No, across the board, no.
    Sure, I had fun, I partied, I had a gas at times. Most often though I sat in a room with friends who held guitars and passed reefers or passed reefers and watched bad movies or funny movies or good movies, but movies all the same. At the time, that's what was done, that's how the friends gathered. Looking back, what a waste of getting wasted. What a load of boring non-events I sought out night after night. I should have gone dancing when I said I didn't feel like it. I should have made a pass at her, him, them when I had the chance. I should have said, yes, I'll visit you in Vermont, yes, I'll eat those mushrooms, yes, I'll meet your friend, yes, I'll go camping.
    Too often it was sorry, I don't feel like it. In reality I was nervous, anxious, afraid. Afraid of novelty. Fear of threshold, I called it. I'm afraid of stepping over that invisible line and into a new world. Once I'm in the new world though, big deal ! Oh this ? Why was I afraid of this ? This is nothing.
    It wasn't the new world I was afraid of, it was stepping into it that sounded my alarms. Why is this ? Why should novelty be such a terrifying thing ? Devil you know will bore you to tears. I was often so bored and it's true what they say, it's because I was boring. I still may be boring but I think I'm actually a little less so nowadays. We'll see how this plays out.
    I was bored, I sat and scribbled while my friends sang songs together. I was too nervous to sing along. I wasn't good at it, so I drew to the beat. I was a visual artist insisting on hanging out with this bunch of musical people. I could have been sitting around a table and laughing and drawing with other drawers but they weren't the ones who were my friends. It's complicated. Yes, there is regret.
    I can't get into all the shoulds right now because I'd run out of pixels and life is too short to boot, but I should have had more courage. I should have got up and left. I should have sought out another scene. I should have stayed home and I should have gone out. I should also cut myself some slack, now I know about that whole youth is wasted on the young thing, 20/20 hindsight and all that. At the time, all I was doing was hanging out with my friends. I didn't think that I was actually making decisions or that I had options or choices or any of that. I was hanging out with my friends. Passively. Repeatedly. Boringly.
    Man, get out there and try out people. Go to parties, meet strangers, buy your own drugs, sing out loud even if the whole world knows you suck because by doing so you won't. It's not to late for me, near forty-six and father to a baby boy. I'm learning new things and trying things out, slowly maybe but surely. And I don't want this kid to be too afraid of this old world of ours. I won't push it but I hope he falls farther from the tree than I did.

Accretions, Breakthroughs, Collections

For the last several days I have been going through my various jars of small found pieces, organized by material - wood, plastic, metal. Some jars are mixed, if the piece I am hoping to keep somehow straddles worlds, or if the metal, plastic or wood jar was full. Beads, single earrings, snapped leather strands, glass knob, seashell, toy wheel - such things go into a jar invisibly marked miscellaneous.
    I have many jars, three devoted to colourful plastic parts. The jars started out as charming vintage ones, from pickles or some such, labels and all. These got scarce quickly and mason jars came into the picture. Mason jars are timeless, even the new ones have some old world charm about them. The plastic I keep can be the inner bits of a box of floss, a lost Kinder toy piece, a small doll shoe, a Spirograph wheel, a small tube from some pen, mostly toy details and obscure industrial components. I've always taken things apart, the ritual counterpart of seeing my father actually make things, his collections meant to be used.
    I've kept my old macrame bracelets, the pull strings from long gone hoodies, bathroom chain, rusted washers, dried rubber bands from date stamps, clock parts, half a dried lime, broken keychains. I've kept crap like this all my life. In the last two years or so, as a response to this growing collection of mayhem and the anxiety it can cause, I started on the dubious campaign of organizing it. Jars proved useful in that my collections took on discrete identities and were quite beautiful seen through glass. I even exhibited them in an art show centered around collecting and it's shadow side, hoarding.
    Now, with the jar trick, I was able to identify what it was that I collect. I collect collections. I have numerous ill-defined ones. Once a jar is full, I can more easily decide if that particular collection merits a second jar. Shall I start picking up more bits of shaped wood to fill a second jar or can I cap it at one ? One, it is ! This way, I can nip it in the bud. Sorry alluring bit of wood, you will stay where I first spotted you, in a discarded shoebox full of junk drawer cast offs left on the sidewalk on moving day, beside the fridge contents and the bedbug bureau.
    Since I've taken to organizing my collections, I've become better at leaving things behind. Not only that but I've also taken to using the parts to create something new, which may have been the purpose of starting to collect in the first place. I found, with being overwhelmed with actual real-life tasks and jobs, that I had neglected to book an exhibit for the gallery for a rapidly approaching month. Quickly, and with the support of my trusty girl-friday, I came up with the idea of mounting an exhibit of the accidental clusters that accumulate within certain quarters of the shop. Before I knew it, I pulled out a treasured found collection, one I thought would remain intact forever. It came from a friends basement, the detritus left behind by previous tenants. It came from an old Greek man, It was the bottom half of a two litre carton of milk stuffed with thin straight coloured seven inch lengths of bendable wire, jutting out like a rainbow obsessive nightmare. Pure potentiality. Of course, it was a perfect ready-made, something I was looking forward to counting as part of my art.
    I found myself pulling a length out and twisting it around some odds and ends. I added to it, antique fake leaves, my teenaged jewellery, rusted metal, spools of thread, toy parts, fishing lures. In a flurry one afternoon I cobbled together several of these fetishes, meant to hang on a bent nail from a stark white wall. I was using my junk. I was unabashedly dipping into thirty year old archives of once treasured objects and fashioning something new from them. Better still, I allowed my partner access to this stash so she too could make art from it.
    This might sound like no big deal to those of you who purchase wall units and glass and metal furniture, laminations of movie posters to go over the love seat. But to collectors of small found objects, who struggle with why they do what they do, this is a big deal. I've turned a serious corner. And to boot, I'm making art that I'm seriously excited by, art that waited years if not decades to manifest.

Working Title

My story veers towards disaster and switches course. The disaster is never something too dramatic. It is simply the slow dissolution of my dreams. I dodge bullets by adjusting my dreams to my reality and continuing.
    I have always assumed success of some sort. Fame, money, status. All these things were for me to choose, flirt with and ultimately reject for a path of contemplation, art making, study and wisdom. Sometimes I think I may have to forego the idea of the roundabout route and head straight for the goal. I am pulled towards the luxuries of status as I am making towards a simple life here on the middle path. As a fifteen year old I declared that wisdom was my aim. I then started in earnest on a path of accumulated social attention. Some people think I'm famous because I know a lot of people and I get my name out there, so to speak. I publish and exhibit widely. I'm a chatterbox. I'm a local scene stalwart. I'm a natural networker with one catch, I don't know how to 'use' my connections. I don't get paid for introducing people to each other. I am behind the scenes, match maker, glue. Has any of this lead me to wisdom? Kind of.
    A few years ago I realized that maybe I should have went for the cash instead.
    At this point I realize I have done little for my future except plant a thousand seeds. I'm unsure which ones have actually taken root. My mother warned me about planning for my old age but who listens to their parents ? The seeds I planted are mostly arty ones, books published, art work shown, press kit organized, classes taught, students inspired. I have a bookcase full of publications that my work has appeared in, approximately four feet of shelving. I am now looking for the process that will activate these blocks of paper, reassemble them, Transformer style, into a printed robot that will go out there and get me rewarding and well paying jobs.
    My story always assumed that some big shot would knock on my door, offering me the deal of the century. That grace would swoop down and kiss my resumé. That rock stars would flock to hear my tales of transcendent wisdom. My story is being rewritten as we speak. The assumptions are drying up and blowing away like so many ninety eight pound weaklings. I still can't do the splits like I hoped to as a child. My superpowers are negligible. My riches come in friends and snacks, which is great but no country cottage will come of that anytime soon.
    It's at this stage in the game that I'm snapping awake to life on earth sans fantasy. I'm finally discovering work. My procrastination problem just may be subsiding. What did this to me ? The time honoured cliché that turns boys to men - having a kid. Since that happened six month ago, and since several months before the big day, I have been running ragged. There's no 'do it later' option. I can't 'hold on a minute' with a baby and his mom, who both need something now. Right now. So I'm up early. I'm up and out of bed performing a task. There is no lead up, warm up, test drive. Get up and go. So I go. So I do other stuff while I can. Rinse plates right away. Adopt a daily drawing regimen. This is my forty ninth daily text. Quality can kiss my ass. I don't have time to shape and craft. I express, I check for typos, I miss some, I upload onto the fucking internet. Done. Next.
    My story shifts with the shifting of dreams. Ego gratification has changed. I've tricked myself into actually working towards my goals instead of assuming they will crash through my ceiling like errant fortean ice. The story now includes a change of scenery and a new cast of characters. I think it'll be a trilogy, a best selling one.

How I Make Comics

The comics I make tend to be silent. Wordless comics, in theory, are able to be read by an international audience of illiterates. Cartoonists Without Borders. The first ones I made were like the twelve minute guitar solos of obtuse comics. I was making comics I myself wasn't reading, heady conceptual games, lots of obscure symbolism, some heavy handedness. The stuff I read is mostly inane humour comics. I read that stuff over and over. Dumb jokes. And Archie.
    The stuff I make aims at some seriousness. I crave to make thought provoking stories that warrant multiple readings, the ten year olds getting some of it, the illuminati getting some other bits. Every short story I used to make was in a different style, I'd hop around in graphic land experimenting, always experimenting. A few years ago I rediscovered pencil and this led to a larger body of work centred around a couple of consistent characters. It's visually cute and makes up around a hundred pages of material. I'm not sure if I've exhausted this particular world or if it will shape shift into the next permutation. I've always hoped to integrate all my fave motifs and characters into one cohesive cartoon universe but frankly I'm not sure if I have the patience.
    It isn't narrative that tugs at me so much as moments. And moments don't exist until they are actualized on paper spontaneously. This method of working makes for a lot of pre-job anxiety but ultimately proves rewarding. I don't know the beginning, middle or end of a story when I begin it. I simply delve in and somehow narrative accretes around my efforts, my discrete moments intuitively building a story. The anxiety comes into play before I start working. All possible styles and motifs crowd my head, each making a strong case for being the thing that will make a decent comic. Of course, this onslaught of potentialities tends to freeze me in place. No work gets done but endless notes and scribbles, and even these lay in piles and never have much to do with the work that eventually get's done.
    Right now I would like to begin my next graphic novel. I'd like to use words. I am wondering if it should be a continuation of my previous works, the richly pencilled adventures of a young magician and his cat. Also in the running is a new approach made up of little 'billy heads' talking about my life, the pithy version of the writing on this blog. This is liberating because I very much want to integrate text into my comics but am unsure how to. With the talking head approach I can veer off into any visual universe because the little head can set it up nicely. Another approach I am seriously considering is a funny animal strip showcasing my famous bunnies. These big eared tricksters would simply be bandying about ridiculous word play. Again, text. Then of course, there is my desire to explore the merging of abstract comics with textual poetics. The fourth and possibly final solution would be to create a cohesive narrative that employs all these directions. Multiple styles telling one overarching story, a work of undeniable complexity and genius.
    Frozen in place. Stock still. Pencils collecting dust and guts churning anxiously. This sounds all too precious and intentional. My passing glimpses reveal an over wrought attempt at a master work. One makes trouble for oneself if that's the thought going out the gate. Failure or frustration will ensue. So I don't know what this next graphic novel will be until I start it. A branding nightmare. It may look like nothing I've done before, it may end up being too oblique for a publisher to bother with. Procrastination also rears it's familiar head and I end up with jots and plans, confidant statements about pagination and panelling. Maybe a title or vague design thumbnails. I need a format before I start. I need a stack of index cards or pre-cut paper, lots of it, to draw on, to waste until I settle into the groove that emerges.
    So the first step, invariably, is preparing paper I've bought specifically for a new project. And new pencils and erasers. New gear sitting there waiting to be hit on, waiting to reveal via first false starts and then a fury of inspiration, an unfolding paper world.
    Wish me luck.

Now And Never

Bullshit, loads of crap and onwards. Stifling thought, fidgeting body, aches and pains. The whole kit, not being able to sit still. Not being able to leave the ground and fly away. Pulled between worlds and tendencies. Monastic fantasies of one small room, a cot, a desk, a bowl, a rug.
Here I would read and write. I would contemplate the mysteries and The Mystery. I would tend my affairs, small and humble, away from the mad rush of the world.
    Off to the side of the magnificent Saint-Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal is a small building that I have visited a few times. The room above the chapel that Brother Andre lived in has left a deep impression on me. What simplicity. Of course, the small church beneath was opulent enough to render the stark wood of his homely room in relief. The saint lived simply, I'm sure, but he was a few steps from religious gold and wrought works of master craftsmen. I must visit this place again, and forget the line of tourists behind me, and just grip the hand rail that leads me through the tour and stare into that simple single room.
    The monastic fantasy, the single cell or tiny house, also echoes the recurring fantasy of true independence, answering to no one. I have never had the privilege of being truly alone. I have never been without sight of another human for longer than a couple of days in my entire life. It is something that lures me and terrifies me. When I first entered an isolation tank, I snapped the lid shut, turned the lights and soothing sounds off and floated in the dark alone. Within moments I pushed at the light switch and threw the door open with a gasp. I am not so hardy as I'd like. I may go stir crazy in the cabin in the woods. The creatures of the wilderness will quickly creep out from between my ears and unsettle me. I'll plan the trip nonetheless, a week on my own. And if not in complete isolation then close to it. I'll bring books and paper and drawing tools. I'll bring a good knife to whittle and food fit for a pauper playing king.
    The other world I'm pulled to is closer to the one I live in than Brother Andre's world. Opulence and grandeur, the feeding of a growing insatiable ego, servant boys bringing me fresh fruit. Luxury and whim, a not over large estate but one linked to a world of adventure and fine dining. Night life with a driver and a table reserved, companions fresh and charming, bottles filled and emptied. No care for the morrow, for others are doing the caring. Basking in the art of living, tasting culture refined and plenty. Plenty, that's the word. A buffet when I want it. The righteous privilege of choosing only steamed mushroom because it pleases me. Padding about great carpeted studies, selecting volumes rare and lavish. Devoting hours of study, brandy nearby. A huge door to throw open to let the night air in as I smoke a pinch of hashish rolled in fine tobacco. Guests asleep in the far wing.
    This tug of war leads me nowhere. I'm not having any of it. A bowl of steamed mushrooms next to a paperback, my child sleeping in the other room, my partner trying to rest. Planning a camping trip or a morning outing can exhaust me. My man servant isn't up to the job. Push it aside, the task at hand and worry. This isn't what I wanted. This cascade of adulthood. But I never threw a duffle bag over my shoulder and I never hit the road and I never starved and buffets are ok but they are sad things too. This world that pulls me to pieces, it's a world I made. This war is my war alone and both sides fling their error and assumptions at my feet. I wade through it, victim and jailer.
    There is light somewhere. I'll have to rake the ground to find it. I'll have to cast away thought to find it. Stretch this aging body and trade my lust for love. Learning to sit still in my old age.

Blooming Late

A few things came late in life. Learning to tie my shoes, learning to tell time and learning to ride a bicycle are the triumvirate symbols of my late blooming. My tricycle was large and green and I couldn't keep up with my brother and his friend from down the street. I do remember ramming into the friend's bike, with him on it, because he was teasing me. I didn't do the damage I craved, but the hit was somewhat satisfying. I don't remember clearly but I probably had tears streaming down my face to ensure total glory could never be mine.
    Shoe laces are confounding things and I didn't get the hang of the over under loops until several months after my peers. I have no particular story associated with laces from back in the day but I do choose slip ons almost exclusively now. Is life long enough to tie and untie shoe laces? No, it isn't. Life demands footwear be thrown on for feet to move body quickly out of the house, down the street and to the coffee shop where it can loll about over a damned game of Sudoku and a coffee enhanced by an unnecessary pastry.
    Clocks went digital for a reason. Time is a fiction we don't need to encourage by sweating over which of the arms is long or short. I still have trouble with analog clocks. I pause over them a little too long for an adult. It took me years to tell the arms apart, that fast third one whipping around confusing me. Of course, so many clocks get fancy with roman numerals, or no digits at all. I don't bother. I stopped wearing a watch, usually a black plastic Casio, often strap snapped off and watch rammed in pocket. I stopped because I would check the time incessantly and forget what I read the moment it went back into my pocket. I lament the endangered status of pay phones, my current source of time telling when out and about.
    Other examples of tardiness are things like responsible adulthood or saving money or acquiring a credit card. Anything that requires bureaucratic process, finance or planning ahead more than a few weeks has only lost it's fear factor in the last five to ten years. Now I open the envelopes as the come through the mail-slot, unwilling to let the snarl of the tax man turn to a bite.
    I have conveniently forgotten the best example. I still don't have a driver's license. This avoidance of the driver's seat is, in what passes for our culture, the prime symbol of ineffectual manhood. Are other areas of life that require proactivity affected because of my lack of driving skills ? Once I grab that steering wheel, will I also grab other opportunities and sail away to self-actualization ? To becoming some archetypal top-dog ? Climb to the top of that ladder in my slip on boots ? A box of gift watches in the drawer of my power desk.

Perfection

After a while it seems inevitable that I'd write about writing, write about not knowing what to write. Stick a mirror in front of another one and watch that tunnel go. Floundering on dry land, belly full, head empty. Not writer's block, that's too easy. And probably just a ploy, one among many to bask in frustration instead of release. Release happens when expectations are cast aside. Blocks occur when there is an unspoken or unrecognized assumption about a goal.
    I have often though about the perfectionism of others and how I myself was spared this affliction. Just recently I was asked if maybe I was actually a perfectionist. It would explain why I shy away from grand projects, why I talk more than do, why I procrastinate, that I'm idealistic and impatient and happy with piecemeal offerings, short bursts of frenzied activity though I dream of well wrought craft. Maybe I am a perfectionist. Maybe I so want to razzle dazzle that I'm afraid to even start lest I fail. But I do start, and I do release work into the public sphere. I'm no hermit with my art. Sometimes I even approach the realms beyond banality.
    Too often though in this life I would imagine some rigorously executed project, how amazing it would be, this three dimensional glass mandala I would build, layers of nesting stained glass spheres, veined in gold and dotted with marbles, all supported by a hand carved stand of the most exquisite design. Sure buddy, write it down because we all know that's not your deal. It isn't. It has taken me decades to relax into the reality of what I am versus what I could be. I could be anything. Anyone could. But why ? We all have the capacity to explore areas in sport, art, science, thought but we don't necessarily do. We pick our battles. I found out that the great schemes of my youth were simply proposals, it would be great for my glass sphere to exist. It would be great to acquire the requisite skills to build it. I know  I won't. Not left to my own devises. If I were to embark on a project of building something complex and three dimensional it would be building a house not a wicked piece of contemplative art.
    I long ago realized that the book is the perfect vessel for any expression I may wish to voice. Any abandoned childhood dream can be easily rephrased as a proposal and left at that. That twenty foot chrome peach pit I designed, built and sold to the state of Georgia ? Oh, that was just an idea. I'll just jot it down on a napkin and that will be that. My Pixar screenplay ? Well, I may get around to writing a two page treatment but that's about it. I'd love to redesign the stagnant corners of my hometown but I may have to be satisfied with the quick sketch and a few lines describing my idea. We'll see.
    What to write about ? What not to write about ? For now, anything goes. This is an exercise. It deflects perfection and settles for settling. Just string a few words together, snap out some ideas and see how it stands. It doesn't have to be diamond quality. It has to be ok. It has to be for now. The great Canadian novel, the perfect science fiction short story, a great YA graphic novel, a long poem encrusted with my every poetic tendency, the scathingly brilliant piece of conceptual writing no one saw coming, all this and more, throw a rock opera into the mix. Let these beasts crawls slowly out of that first murky ocean and see how they take to firm ground, flippers turning to feet. Let every step be small and definite. Let the masterwork be crafted with occasional spastic gestures. Let perfection erupt spontaneously from naive ramblings and honest attempts. World without end.