Tuesday, September 28, 2010

diploma-vectoreds

I have a lot of big things on my mind right now. I have more to say about these things, but I'm afraid if I don't write them down, they are just going to live in my text file entitled "today" for months and months and I will forget about them. Some of these are idea-stems for drawings (and may be supplemented with doodles later), some of them are just things on my mind.

1. It's spider time. Never until I moved to Oregon have I understood exactly why spiders come with Halloween time, other than imported spookiness, like mummies or ghosts. But here, tiny cute spiders show up in May and grow steadily to sizes that would give nightmares to my friends in the high plains, where altitude limits a bug's size and stamina. They are getting pretty juicy here, and while it makes walking through the neighborhoods a bit dicey, it also means, with the rain, there are lots of raindrops in large, complete spider webs to admire.

2. I went to yoga last night. It was my first session in a LONG time, the first session since the knee surgery and the physical therapy. I used to go sporadically -- I liked it with reservations, I'm not terribly flexible and I think that kept me from going through the motions without baggage. Thinking it was a hard thing made it a hard thing. I spend most of my time in my own head drawing out ideas through a brush or pen, so while I am fit because of my housecleaning job, there's very little intention involved with my movements. All of my motions are incidental. I have to get out of this chair, I have to put on my shoes, I have to leave my building. That kind of thing.

Then I had knee surgery and suddenly all of the incidental motions were intentional. Suddenly just taking a few steps was a challenge. I spent about 6 months thinking a LOT about my body -- how to talk to it, how to make it do what it needs to do despite its insistence that it was not possible. I had to learn the difference between the resistance that meant "try harder," and the resistance that meant "stop! Don't do that yet!" And so through that a lot of my ideas about what it means to move around changed for me. Last night -- even though I warned my instructor I was going to take it easy -- I was able to hold poses stronger than I EVER had before, despite the muscle atrophy, despite the time away. It was really incredible.

3. Standing the way one is meant to stand in yoga (not standing on toes, ignoring the plantar faciatisis) helps my bunions somehow.

4. Lately, in the pictures I make, I've having trouble letting go. I don't think this is a unique problem. I sketch nice and imaginatively, but often my executions get closer and closer to reality.