- This one is a cheat, I know it, you know it, but I'm doing it anyway. :-) I am thankful for Christmas mornings. I've spent 56 of them or so, most of them shining with bright faces of children, some of them not so merry, but every one is filled with a renewed hope for myself and the world and I wouldn't trade a single one of them for anything. A little bit of Christmas morning lives with me each and every day. My wish for everyone today is that this morning is the beginning of a year of prosperity and love for you all. Merry Christmas!
"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year." - Circular logic today. :-) After 151 days, I am thankful the way this training of thankfulness has crept into each and every act throughout the day, it's like a force of nature uncaged. As I type I am thankful my fingers are not yet arthritic, that none of the keys on this keyboard have snapped off, that my diligence tells a tale with the print polished off the A, S, and C keys, that the coffee is still warm, for the sketch behind me I'm going to transform to a new painting today, that watercolor never goes bad, it just needs water to bring it back to life, that it's quiet now but I'll be thankful for the flurry and noise when everyone awakens . . . it just doesn't stop. Oh, hey you - though this list is for **me**, my therapy and growth, thank you for reading.
"I've never before been so aware of the thousands of little good things, the thousands of things that go right every day." - I am thankful for the mistakes I've made, in life, in painting, in turning around and smacking my head on the cupboard door I left open, all of them. We tell ourselves this teaches us what not to do, which is a greater mistake I've relied on most of my life. I now look for a new way of doing what led to the error, like forming a habit of minding my way as I go - close the cupboard door before turning away, for example. :-)
"Mistakes are the portals of discovery." - I am thankful for mysteries, and that some of them may never be solved. Mysteries keep us wondering and searching, looking for answers to the ones we can do something about. Larger mysteries keep us humble.
"Without mysteries, life would be very dull indeed. What would be left to strive for if everything were known?" - Really good masking tape deserves a place on my list. I am thankful for GOOD masking tape, the kind that sticks and won't come loose after an hour. Cheap masking tape is the very definition of Murphy's law. It will always show your error at the worst possible time, when you're about to stroke around the window casings, paint that little detail in the corner, or finish up with the air or spray brush and you are spending more time trying to get the tape to stick back to the surface than painting. Cheap masking tape rips down the center just trying to get it off the roll, and once you do, no matter how hard you burnish it down it falls off or leaves a sticky residue you have to work off with acetone. As my watercolors begin to dry the paper pulls it right off the table, it's a mess. 3M or Scotch automotive painter's tape is the shit, forms a nice sharp edge, sticks until you're done and comes off clean. Resist the 99 cent roll urge. :-)
"Anything worth doing is worth doing right the first time."
"It is one thing putting away the past, and quite another to tape its mouth shut." -
I've seen many rainbows, but am most thankful for the rainbow I captured fishing on a lake once. It wasn't even a rainbow really, it was a fogbow and is another one of those moments I mentioned in #30. I arrived at the lake before sunrise in the early morning chill, puttered my aluminum boat through the fog to my favorite spot by the island, dropped anchor, let my line sink to the bottom and sat back. The stage was set and the main character rose over the mountains behind me, she beamed her rays through the thinning fog and set a full rainbow in front of me, the color materializing from the mist like the rising music of an orchestra. It seemed like it couldn't be more that 50 yards off the port side of the boat, and hovered there for a good five minutes while I sat amazed. It was so strong I could see it's reflection in the glassy water. This picture barely captures the moment; I am thankful I could be there to see it.
"The work will wait while you show the child the rainbow, but the rainbow won't wait while you do the work." - I am thankful for the animals in the world, from the ground squirrels that used to annoy me to the fierce and powerful predators that still roam the Earth, each of them has a lesson to teach us. I really don't like visiting the zoo.
"Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve." - I am thankful for $20 date nights. :-) Sure, expensive ones are fun too, but our best outings, like last evening's, cost little or nothing at all.
"The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it." - When I was young I always tried to fit in, did the same things as my peers, dressed the same way, talked their talk and walked their walk, and all the while thought I was being different. Being different is not a road traveled in groups, it is a road of solitude, often lonely, but it's also a road on which you see things many people won't or can't. I am thankful for my own uniqueness, and the experiences it brings me.
"Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else." - I am thankful for hummingbird feeders. We have one on the back patio and as I stand near it, the hummingbirds zip around my head and don't seem too disturbed at my presence. If there were such a thing as fairies, they would be spirits like the hummingbird.
- I am thankful I spent four years learning old school photography in college. It taught me the science behind emulsions and photographic materials, the studies of Ansel Adams ("expose for highlights, develop for shadows,") the art of dodging and burning beneath the beam of an enlarger in a darkroom, the dynamics of light, what I needed to do to bring about proper exposure to negatives, and once again fortified the appreciation for creations from my own hands. Digital photography has reduced this art to selection of lighting, composition, framing, clicking, and digital manipulation of pixels; while that's all well and good for producing digital images, photographers today are really missing out on a lot of the insight that comes from the process of coaxing analog images from exposed films.
"Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art." - I am thankful for constant complainers. I share an empathy with them; every complaint is a reflection of how I used to live. The world is all wrong, it's all their fault, why me, my trust has been betrayed and there is no hope, someone screwed me over and there's no fixing it, I am trapped in an endless river of troubles from which there is no escape. The same share of troubles still flows by my door daily, sometimes hourly, but I refuse to make it part of my life any more. None of life's problems has anything to do with what is beautiful and untouchable. Not a single one. That is where I choose to live. I CHOOSE.
"Discontent, blaming, complaining, self-pity cannot serve as a foundation for a good future, no matter how much effort you make." - I am thankful that even in times of strife, the things that are important are always in full abundance: heat, home, direction, creation, love. And cats that are either tearing through the house in play or forcing their way into a lap. You just can't feel bad when a dog lays it's nose on your knee or a cat is purring in your lap. Or next to your ear on your shoulder, as some weird cats do . . . .
"The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials." - I am thankful for stuff that matters. I know, deciding that a thing matters or not requires a judgement, but as the declaration says, we hold these truths to be self evident. Set aside opinions, prejudice, agendas, selfishness, a child's future matters. A homeless person matters. An end to global conflict matters. Eliminating hunger and poverty matters. Living a life and not just making a living matters. There are many more.
"The most important things in life aren't things." - Things in life happen no matter how hard we try to prepare for them. Plan for cold, we arrive overdressed and have to carry our clothes; plan for sun, it will probably rain; plan for peace, a battle awaits us. I'm thankful for the knowledge that no planning or scheming can prepare us for what is to come; arrive ready to accept the ever-changing landscape of life and be ready to adapt to it quickly.
"When you're trying to create things that are new, you have to be prepared to be on the edge of risk." - I am thankful for the first car I owned, a faded greenish, 6 cylinder, four door 1956 Rambler my parents picked up for $150, and all the road trips from Torrance to surfing points south it managed to take us. I'm surprised it ran as long as it did; it bled fluids out of every possible place, the trunk was wired shut and almost always had beer in it, the racks always had surfboards bungied to them, it devoured a total of three 8 track tape players and 10 or 20 tapes over the course of its life, but $20 would takes us out of the city and into the unknown like a golden chariot. What I'm most thankful about is it put the wheels under me that grew my world, not always into good places, but places that taught many lessons I still carry.
"Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car." - I am thankful for weekends. Even if the weekends of your working schedules don't fall on Saturday and Sunday, those two days mark a cycle in our lives as surely as the tides and months, they etch a dividing line between all we must do and all we love to do. Without both, neither are very meaningful.
"The whole point of the week is the weekend."
"Catch and release fishing: When practiced near the middle of the week completely changes the meaning of Throwback Thursday." - First cup of coffee every morning, I am thankful for the morning visits of 10 or 20 small black birds on two telephone lines over our house. I'm not sure what they are, they are like red winged blackbirds but all black, with a rich musical song varying from low language-like warbly chatter to rising whistles and chirps. I can almost hear the conversation as they flutter back and forth between the two lines, changing positions, addressing one another, then in agreement they all swoop away and to the horizon. Great way to start the day. Feeling like Snow White. :-D
"Birds are a miracle because they prove to us there is a finer, simpler state of being which we may strive to attain." - I am thankful for giving, and I do not mean money, donations, or charity. The greatest gifts a person can receive are products of giving and sharing your time.
"We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give." - Though briefly mentioned throughout this list, I am thankful I know how to repair just about anything on cars. Tune ups, radiators, brakes, drive train, electronics, just about everything, but I stay out of transmissions, those require big shop toolage. Yesterday I went through $150 in parts that would have easily set us back $1000 in an auto shop. Though it's often frustrating and painful, there's something Zen-like about getting your hands dirty, wrenching through a problem, and doing the job right.
"Screw out the bolts of your life, examine and work on yourself, fix your life again and get going." - I am thankful for fog. When a good fog rolls in, I think about mysteries, B horror movies, London, Lochy rising from the mists of a black lake, the world becomes a place of fantasies from Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone. Clouds settle down from the heavens and wrap their chilly vapors around us, dropping a veil of imagination over all we see, releasing us from reliance on the concrete and rational. Fog gives us a visual glimpse of the abstract; the power to manifest mansions and treasures from cardboard shacks and street refuse.
"It is not the clear-sighted who rule the world. Great achievements are accomplished in a blessed, warm fog." - I am thankful today is my wife's birthday. Yet another perfect year with the perfect woman, perfect wife, and perfect friend, so fortunate for an imperfect man. :-)
"With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come." - I have been to many concerts in my life, but of them all I am most thankful for the chance to attend U2 concert I attended with my daughter on Easter Sunday, 2001. We won the floor tickets free from a radio station promo, rode the tour bus from Grants Pass to arrive at the Rose Garden in Portland, every seat in the house was full - but the floor was almost empty. Fans waved banners: "Sunday, Easter Sunday." On the trip up one of the DJ's from the station collected a draw with the question, "what will be their opening song?" As everyone tossed money in the hat, my daughter guessed "Elevation," and another DJ turned and said, "that's crazy, they won't do the title song as their opening!" She won the draw, over $100. At one point Bono did his signature crowd dives, and as he moved to the side door out of the crowd, I reached my hand through and got a high five from Bono himself. My daughter said, "Never wash that hand." :-) With all of that, it was also one of the greatest shows I've ever seen.
"Explain all these controls. Can't sing but I've got soul." - I am thankful I am, most of the time, a naive idealist. There are no unicorns, people will probably never join hands and sing kum-bay-ya, there are people who would dance with joy just to watch it all burn, but somehow believing we can change it makes it something worth working toward, something to create a reality from, with simple daily actions. I'd rather live a fantasy where it's possible - sometimes unlikely, but possible - for light to fill our lives than to dwell in the shadow of despair. Like anything else, it is choice.
"Words without actions are the assassins of idealism." - I am thankful that somewhere, right now, a newborn takes its first breath; the hearts of new found lovers are beating wildly in their first kiss; someone is flying down the freeway singing at the top of their lungs; another is making a life changing discovery about themselves; strangers eyes meet and both smile; laughter is echoing within the walls of a home; a child is screaming with joy at the first sight of bubbles; someone is reflecting that there is nowhere on Earth they would rather be than where they are, at this moment. Life is blooming like spring flowers all around, its energy a silent song of joy, can you feel it?
"Watch with glittering eyes the world around you. Those who do not believe in magic will never find it." - I am thankful that the most amazing things in life don't come out of a box, off a store shelf, or from a warehouse; they can't be downloaded, bought, traded, duplicated or stolen. The most amazing things in life are the creations we manifest daily, the seeds we plant that can grow into the grand elm trees of life. The difficult part is acting on them.
"Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe." - I am thankful for the little smooth left I rode yesterday, seems like out of all the cool rides I've caught it just stands out. Second ride of the day, I leaned my board into the wave a little to the left, the O'Neill seemed like it knew right where to go. I popped to my feet and the wave grew behind me, no whitewater on the face, just a silent hush of liquid green moving onshore. I rode up to the lip, stalled a little, cut down across the face, cut hard back in, zig-zagged across the middle, up down, squat, stand, seemed like it went on forever until it finally lost power. I bent back down on the board, laid out flat, and paddled back out. It made the whole day worth it.
"When you stay with it and catch that wave, you really taste it. It's magic." - I am thankful for the aches, bumps, bruises, scratches, and exhaustion that follow play, and sometimes work, that I do. It tells me I'm alive and I meant it. It also lets me know how close I'm coming to my limits. :-)
"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." - Every six minutes or the headlights of east bound jets climb to the heavens out of the San Diego airport and over our neighborhood. I watch the them coming from the west, hear the jet engines wind down as they level off overhead and wonder, where are they going? What new adventures and challenges await those on board? Newlyweds on their honeymoons, businessmen and businesswomen spending yet another week away from their beloveds in hope of a better life, fathers and mothers off to see their children once again, the bereaved on mournful journeys to recover the remains of those that have passed into the ether, what takes them away from their cozy couches and warm fireplaces to a place far away from their homes? A time will come when I will be on board one of those fantastical flights that will take me to the places I can only dream of today, and for their rumbling, contrail filled passages overhead I am thankful. These are the paths I will travel, they mark my future to waves that have not yet lifted my spirit and guided it toward sandy shores, to adventures that save a small piece of their wonder to share with my heart.
"How often I found where I should be going only by setting out for somewhere else." - I am thankful for girls' night out. Not because it's a break from my wife, but because she always comes home with a girlish giggle in her heart, out with the girls talking about things I was never meant to hear, sharing a few secrets with me (but not all, obviously,) and the light in her eyes makes me think of how she must have been as a child on Christmas morning. I love that look. People need to wear it more often.
"Go girl, seek happy nights to happy days."
Categories: About the Art
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