Remembering that it's "small ponderings"...

I think the problem the last few days with getting this post up is a matter of scale. This came to me because the documentary project I'm working on has me a bit stuck only cause it's such a big story I can get my arms around it.

The way I work on most anything is with a whole vision. I usually see/feel the big picture, then back into the details. Much more organic than linear. Add, subtract, redo, fumble around, until I arrive at IT. And IT is always an intuitive spot, as long as I'm honest with myself and not all controlling. And I'd say at least half the time, I don't get IT.

Anyways, this post: what's on my mind and what I've been wanting to talk about is the bittersweetness and built-in melancholy of life, and how for a long time I thought there was something wrong with that, and now, for whatever reason, I don't. And how I'm realizing a lot of people (myself included) possess these great passions, both light and dark, and how my history has been and how I observe that a lot of us repress what we perceive as dark (cause you know we always want to be light and bright!) and how I'm now learning that maybe that's not healthy, or fair, to ourselves or those we interact with. Only recently (in the past 6 months or less) have I learned how to make stuff when in a dark or stormy mood.

I feel a lot of changes in perspective and attitude happening, daily, an opening up. I look back of my posts and see it, the mask post, the pendulum swinging, the ups and downs and thrashing about. I tend to extremes of mood and actions, and am less inclined to resist them. I'm more accepting of where I am at a given moment, and more confident that will change. I experience and feel things intensely, and am beginning to embrace things equally, instead of just going for the good stuff. I'm ever less interested in surface shine- I seem to want the rust, dents, mud, rawness, heat or cold, weight, storms and imbalances equally these days with the light, soft, calm, smooth, easy going perfectly temperate climate. And those universal messages? I'm getting a steady dose of them telling me that you can't have sun without dark, you can't have spring without winter. You can't have good without bad. Real life consists of more than facades, and I want to see it and live it in the full round.

I started getting a sense of these feelings around last November, when it occured to me that I've been driven to make certain clay forms for over 3 years and not knowing why. I saw them together and it hit me, they are markers, sentinals, directional elements. That's when the idea for the installation became clear to me. I didn't (still don't) know why I need to do it, but am certain that I DO need to do it. And since January, the scope has grown, like once the trickle began there was no holding back the flood. So now the bigger and more varied forms I've been talking about, still all markers, indicators, pointers. And the recent obsessions with drawing and painting doors and windows. Just over the last few days, I realized these fit (in my mind) right along with the clay work. What I don't know is are they entrances, or exits? And where do they lead? What am I being pointed towards? Finding something of myself (in myself)? Or is it a suggestion to lose myself? And why?

Of course all this is unanswerable, and I know the only course I can follow is to go with it, down all the little side roads and dead ends and meander around and let the answers find me (or not) instead of chasing them wildly. Here's one way I know change is afoot- normally I'd be tenaciously pursuing resolution of all this questions. And for some reason lately, I have faith they'll come in their own good time and I'm very calm, relaxed and even a little amused (on good days) about it. And to be honest, I'm enjoying getting acquainted with parts of myself I've kept buried for about a lifetime. The dark side, it ain't all bad, just needs a bit of tending to.

So I think I'm gonna bail on the Mother Of All Ponderings and stick with little bits and pieces. It's a matter of scale, and for me, as expressive and intense as I can be, small feels good.

I leave you with this tune from my playlist which I've been playing a lot since February. It kinda sums up how I'm feeling about things lately:

Hear 'em singing Happy Birthday
Better think about the wish I made
This year gone by ain't been a piece of cake
Every day's a revolution
Pull it together and it comes undone
Just one more candle and a trip around the sun

Chorus:
I'm just hanging on while this old world keeps spinning
And it's good to know it's out of my control
If there's one thing that I've learned from all this living
Is that it wouldn't change a thing if I let go

No, you never see it coming
Always wind up wondering where it went
Only time will tell if it was time well spent
It's another revelation
Celebrating what I should have done
With these souvenirs of my trip around the sun

Yes, I'll make a resolution
Then I'll never make another one
Just enjoy this ride on my trip around the sun
Just enjoy this ride ...
Until it's done

Hope everyone has a great evening, and thanks for reading.