my grandmother's eyes

They were a beautiful, deep, warm, luminous brown that always brought to my mind the word lambent. They remained vivid and vibrant her entire life, and I can still remember them as clearly as I can remember anything.
 

I have been feeling flu-ish since last Tuesday. On Friday my doctor sent me to get tested for covid. Just got my results back today -- NEGATIVE!! Woot!!

I recently read that Kurt Vonnegut claimed writers have a defining moment that more or less informs their oeuvre. He said that his was the realization that his parents weren't happy, but could have been, and why weren't they. I leave it to you to decide if that concept is lying within his works. But it got me thinking about a moment that I have long felt is definitive for me.

I remember that I was eleven, and it was summer, and I was alone, lying face down in the front yard, closely examining the grass. (I thought of it as scientific curiosity.) And I suddenly found myself thinking about world hunger. Looking back now, that strikes me as an odd topic for a kid to be dwelling on out of nowhere. But I also remember that there were a lot of TV commercials for charities in the sixties, and we were frequently presented with the sight of starving dark children -- they were always dark, I couldn't help but notice, even though we didn't have a colour TV yet. The point being, the concept of world hunger was never far from our awareness for long. So I was thinking about it on this summer afternoon.

And it occurred to me that either we couldn't solve the problem of hunger, or we could but didn't. Meaning that we were either helpless in the face of a cruel universe, or that we were cruel ourselves.

And then I got thinking about God. Which also wasn't odd, since I was raised in a devout Fundamentalist Baptist household, and considered myself a believing Christian. I was taught that God was all-powerful, all-loving, and all-good. But, again, either God couldn't solve the problem of hunger, or He could but didn't. Which meant that either He was not all-powerful, or not all-good. I didn't carry the thought to the point of "this doesn't make any sense", but I went as far as "this is a lot more complicated than anyone lets on. There are problems here that the people in church don't want to deal with."

There is a Bible verse where Jesus says, "If you ask anything in My name, I will do it." In church, I was taught that "asking something in Jesus's name" meant "praying in accordance with God's will". As in The Lord's Prayer: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". Another Bible verse says, "The Lord is not willing that any should perish". I was taught that "perish" here did not refer to physical death, but meant being consigned to hell. So, possibly, the physical deaths of starving people "wasn't as important". But here it seemed to me that all we needed to do was pray, "Lord, in Jesus's name, I pray that no one gets sent to hell". If both those verses are true, then that should take care of it -- all of humanity is now saved. But any church person will assure you that it doesn't work that way. No one had explained to my satisfaction why it didn't. [No one has yet. Again, more complicated than anyone wanted to let on.] I also had some trouble with the concept of praying that God's will be done: I didn't see how that differed from saying, "Dear Lord, please do whatever You want", or even "Dear Lord, please do whatever You were going to do anyway if I didn't bother praying". I mean, does He not do what He wants if we don't ask Him to do something?

Anyway, I ended up facing the prospect that, in a world created and ruled by a loving omnipotent God, people would continue to die of hunger, and that the ensuing helplessness and/or cruelty were inevitable. It was the first time I could remember feeling depressed.

And when I finally went back inside, my mom could see that something was getting me down, and she asked me what was wrong. And I told her "nothing". Because I was sure she wouldn't understand or accept. It was also the first time I could remember feeling so alienated from my parents.

These issues have returned to haunt me again and again for over fifty years. I still haven't sorted it out to my satisfaction. And I feel like anyone who figures they have got it sorted out, hasn't really thought about it enough.

rocking NaNoWriMo for my third consecutive attempt -- just past four days in and I am closing in on 30K of the 50K word goal. I got this!

[but yeah my hands and arms are sore and tired...]

I know I haven't gratituded in a long time. I know I keep telling myself I will do it every day. I know it's more effective the more ya do it. I know, I know, I know.

But I saw something today that reminded me about it, and here I am back on the horse. No good comes of berating myself for being remiss, so, rather, allons-y.

Today I am grateful that my notes on my next novel are coming together well, and I feel very prepared to tackle NaNoWriMo next week. Back in February I was so deeply stuck on this story that I gave it up. After writing four novels last year, I found myself unable to muster one. So I diverted myself into painting, and then my new comic strip. But things started shifting in late summer, and the story started pestering me again, and falling into place better. And now I am back in Writer Mode. [Not sure if a Real Writer like ginsu would consider me one, but IMHO I'm close enough for horseshoes.]

The way things look and feel now, I expect to be able to hit my 50,000 words next month, and go beyond, and finish this book. And after my production last year, no, I am not a failure for only writing one novel in a year, so there.

My 27th painting, Early Tree, is not part of my earlier UK series, but I do plan to return to that at some point. This one was a gift for a friend who appreciates Early Trees: oddball trees that change colour well before autumn begins, before any of the neighbouring trees do. Early Trees are a gentle, quirky delight.

feeling competent

Today I am on day two of a migraine, and looking for some way to distract myself from it. I debated starting a new painting, since the light is good today, but told myself, No, I think I'll do some cartooning, I can relax with that a bit better.

And I realized what this means.

Painting is still something I need to focus intensely on. I feel like a rank noob, I go slow and second-guess myself every step of the way. But when I draw comics, there is still focus, but it's less scrunched-up concentration and more meditative mindfulness. I feel like I know what I'm doing and can simply rest in that. And today I am taking pleasure in that sense of “knowing what I'm doing”...

Painting #24 is another in my UK Series.

During my last trip to York, I discovered Minster Gates: a short cramped little street, packed with various shops in the ground floors of wonderful old buildings, that suddenly surprises at the end with a view of the side of York Minster. I tried to capture some of that sense of reveal here.

being alive

Neither of my older brothers lived to be as old as I am today. The oldest died just over five years ago, and he was just over five years older than me. So in a sense I have been waiting for this day to see if I could make it. Apparently I did. Ever since he passed, I've harboured an odd feeling that, if I made it to today, that everything I get after this point is gravy... as if I have no right to more than my brothers got.

I'm probably being silly, but I don't intend to worry overmuch about it. I'd rather focus on making the best use I can of these coming days.

My 23rd painting is a self-portrait, another in my UK Series. A few people have liked this one. One of them applauded my courage in tackling a self-portrait, saying that those aren't easy. Oddly enough, part of why I tackled it was because I expected it to be not too hard. I can't think offhand of an artist who never did a self-portrait, so I figured that these were simply The Done Thing® and it was more or less expected that everyone can do it. Glad I didn't know going in that it wasn't easy, or that might have scared me away!