Just rooms and halls – to those other people

But to me even the chairs and the book shelves

Are special, not in and of themselvs

But as they are, to me, bricks in the House of Memory

Over head a giant multi-faced clock churned out seconds; seconds that bounced off the  glass, tile and stone of the station in a symphony of echoes. Every clock displayed a different time (and if you watched carefully, you’d see that some of the hands were traveling backward). The clock she watched – just 7 minutes now – had a little sign underneath it, and in faded ink it read 22. She started gathering up her luggage, a series of small crates like wooden hat boxes with leather handles, each one sporting a label drawn in a careful hand; Memories. Lessons. Mistakes.

She glanced at the clock, just three minutes to go now, and she could hear the train whistle off in the distance. She also heard the sound of high-heels traveling at a very high rate of speed down a very long staircase. The shoes and the woman wearing them ran down the hall, skidded to a stop beside the clock, and then spotted the other woman.

“There you are, thank goodness! I was starting to worry I wouldn’t make it!” she said, out of breath.

“Oh I knew you’d make it. Are you ready to go?” she asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be I suppose!” She held out her one small, unmarked box as proof.

“Well we’ve got another minute, why don’t you sit down?”

And they did. They sat and talked on a bench for a moment, catching up as best they could. It was always brief when they met, but brief was better than nothing.

“Did you have a good year?” she asked.

“Up and down. You know how it is – or you will soon enough,” she laughed.

The 22 and 23 arrived at the station, one north and one south-bound. They said goodbye, boarded their trains and sat down at window seats where they could look across the tracks and wave at each other. Two identical faces reflected in the glass, this year and that year, preparing to leave the station.

Not my greatest work, but I enjoy the concept (no doubt, better if fully realized and written in more than 28 minutes…perhaps editing will be a part of this project as well

Whether the art be visual, verbal, or musical in nature, it is a reflection of yourself, so I suppose this could be extrapolated out to being afraid of my own reflection. I’m afraid for you to see it, but almost as afraid to see it myself. The painting in my head is a decent painting. Not amazing, world shattering art, but decent. Once I let it creep out of me and onto the canvas however, it becomes not just flawed by my lack of skill but exposed to reality. This is where the battle begins. The artistic part of me has the luxury of not existing, of being a disembodied imagining that only I am privy to. It exists exclusive of judgement, housing  shelves full of books, halls full of paintings, theaters full of performances that exist in vivid, unsatisfied safety. And that’s the problem. They want to come out, and at the risk of sounding half crazy, they drive me half crazy with their shouting. It is frustrating, because intellectually I realize that art is humanity, and humanity is flawed – that is the nature of it – but I hesitate to breathe life into these ghosts of an idea for fear of how flawed they will be in reality. I’ve thought about it, and I’ve come to this conclusion:

That’s not good enough.

So for the next year I plan to post at least once a week with some sort of creation. Words, paint, photos, music, who knows what, but something. It’s not as intense as the blog-a-day model, but it interests me. What does a year of productive creativity look like? If you set about it with the intention of completion, not perfection, of allowing these creatures to exist in their imperfection, what would a year produce?

We’ll find out ; ) The blog, as you see, has changed title. For the next year it’ll be Artibition – an exhibition conquering artistic  inhibitions.

Ok, they weren’t written one per day. They weren’t all good, and some were barely long enough to be a good text message, let along a blog. But in keeping with my rules (a day is defined by from when I get up to when I go to bed) I’ve come in under the wire, 365 blogs between April 29th 2010 and April 29th 2011. It was an imperfect ride, but a good one over all. I learned things, I had fun, and I wrote almost every day. So what now? Well the blog is going in a different direction. It started with a challenge, and it will continue as one, but I think it’s time for something new. Tune in tomorrow to learn the fate of our intrepid friend Blog, and for those of you who have followed along and read this silly thing, thank you very much, it’s made it all the more fun.

Even though this isn’t a very interesting topic I felt I had to go with it since thought of the answer almost instantly. My old rocking horse. I really, really loved that thing. It was a nice sensible wooden one, not one of these crazy molded plastic on springs contraptions, but an honest to God wooden rocking horse with red yarn hair. I remember when my parents asked me to give it to my cousin, and I asked very specifically if I could have it back when she got older and didn’t want to play with it anymore. I was told yes. I was not told that she would rip the hair out and commit other childhood war crimes against my favorite toy. I believe it was eventually thrown out, and quite honestly, I don’t think I will ever forgive the aforementioned parties unless the horse is returned, or a replacement is delivered, complete with a sincere apology. This is what my 7 year old self wants. My 7 year old self is not really accustomed to the idea of passage of time, but it is very solid on property rights.

Wintergreen mints; what my neighbor gave me while sitting in church as a child.

Bathroom (possibly more specifically, urinal) cleaner; years spent learning music at the Carpenter’s Hall

Christmas Trees; Um, Christmas, duh.

The one that’s really puzzling me is the smell of a tree in my front yard when it’s in full bloom. It reminds me very much of something, but I can’t remember what. It’s apparently something happy – so clearly it’s not just spring, a rather dismal season in the northwest – something hopeful, but I can’t remember for the life of me what I’m actually remembering. It is now a memory of a memory, an echo of a feeling that long ago slipped my mind.

I’m not much of a poet, as I get caught in a trap between a place where I feel my language is too dry, and one where I think it too florid. Perhaps this is my problem altogether; living in two extremes and never finding middle ground within myself.

But if I were a poet, if I could force the words into nicely metered lines, soldiers marching in the war I wage with words, and I would ask them to illustrate my meaning. To rise above the fear of being too much or too little and simply find the best way to say the thing; that I don’t think this is a problem I can resolve. A thousand years, two thousand, it wouldn’t matter – stones and rivers may change size and course, but they will still be stones and rivers.

Alright Bloggie. You’re on.

Today I caught the plastic lid on my coffee cup whistling in the wind. It seemed a rather poetic thing for a coffee cup to do : ) But ugh, I’m tired and I don’t feel well, so I think I’ll call it a night. Tomorrow, on to marathon blogging!