my birthday!

For decades, I have usually treated my birthday as just another day, nothing worth making a fuss or big deal about. But, a couple of weeks back, I realized that I was genuinely looking forward to it this year.

And I don't know why. It's not like it's a landmark number, or like I have any unusual plans, or whatnot. I guess I'm just happy to be here.

In the novel I'm reading today, I suddenly felt pounded by the realization that someone else Gets Something® that I thought I was The Only One Who Got It®. Here's the relevant passage from Star Shipped by Cat Sebastian:

“Why isn't it enough?” Simon asks when they're in the car heading back to the city, Edie passed out on the back seat between them.

“What isn't enough?”

“They love me. And I love them?” He doesn't mean for it to be a question. “I mean, I do. But not, like, actively. Except Nora.” He tries to fill his lungs. “And my mom?”

Charlie doesn't ask what it means to love someone but not actively love them, which is good because Simon doesn't have any answers. All he knows is that he's unsatisfied down to his bones, greedy for something he can't identify.

[emphasis added]

This is the year I re-invent myself.

I didn't choose this year, more like it chose me... and why now, I don't know. But there it is — I can feel it. This year I re-invent myself as a cartoonist, as a painter, and [if I can manage to tackle poetry] as a writer, too.

making a breakthrough [okay, maybe more like a baby step forward] in designing a character for my graphic-novel WIP

My 60^th acrylic is another in my projected No Idea series.

( the story behind it )

The other day we went to visit Ma [my mother-in-law] at her long-term care placement, as we've done semi-weekly for like half a year now. During that time, I've come to recognize and be more familiar with some of the other residents.

One in particular is a woman who might well be about our age or maybe not much more. Wheelchair-bound [like almost all the residents in Ma's section], white-haired, tall, very thin, with an elegant patrician face, the sort of bone structure that preserves your beauty for life. Most likely she was movie-star lovely in her youth. The thing I notice about this woman is that she always looks sad. Almost half the times I've seen her, she's been crying about no-idea-what. Sometimes she will let out an angry outburst of "Get out!" directed to the empty hallway in front of her... but except for those times, she is non-verbal. [Again, like almost all the residents in Ma's section.] When she's not crying or yelling, she sits quiet, gazing above everyone else's heads, looking utterly forlorn.

I remember a time that I couldn't help thinking that this must be a helluva way to live.

Last time we visited, a man about our age showed up. I don't recall seeing him before, but the staff greeted him by name, so he must be a regular. [TBH I've never noticed many regular visitors in that section besides ourselves — maybe we visit at unusual times.] He had a generous colourful bouquet with him, and brought it to the aforementioned lady, announcing that today was their fiftieth anniversary.

And that woman lit up. She wasn't able to speak to her husband but she kept her eyes locked on him and her smile never dimmed. She took the flowers from him, posed for him to take a picture, then a nurse took a picture of them together, and the whole time she looked rapturously happy.

I'd been thinking that she lived a joyless life, but here a moment of deep joy came to her, and she recognized it and revelled in it. And I found it so intensely moving to see her, that my eyes got wet and I had to take care not to let people see. We took Ma off somewhere else then, but that meeting of that couple wouldn't let go of me. I've been thinking about it ever since [my impetus to write about it, obviously]. 

I keep thinking that her life does have its own moments of Goodness, and those are probably what she lives for. And, in that respect, she's perhaps no different from any of the rest of us.

My 58^th acrylic is sorta my 55^th because I did the underdrawing for it back in January, then left it untouched til now. An attempt to let Expressionism [and maybe Fauvism] inform my approach a bit more than usual.

( the story behind it )

I was recently talking with Barbara about a local artist [acrylic painter] I have met and conversed with a few times... and how I always find it flattering but odd when I realize that said artist talks with me [and about me] as if I am a peer. Barbara says that I am one and should certainly see myself that way, but I have trouble with this. Then she got talking about whether I realize that I am a good artist, and that my art is good.

Afterward I thought about it for a while, and realized that I do think that my work is generally Good Enough®, but I don't think of it as Good®. Since then, I've been struggling to define for myself just what the difference is, between good enough and good.

Finally I settled on something like this: if I look at a piece of mine, and I don't see things that I wish I had done differently, or parts that aren't quite what I would like.... if the flaws are not glaring, but are acceptable instead, then I can say the work is good.** Then I got thinking about which pieces of mine I can say that about.

I came up with four. Out of sixty years of arting.

Not sure where I'm going with this, I still need to mull over and hash out. Wondering if other people make a similar distinction between good-enough work and good work. I just wanted to get this down while I thought of it.



** and is this how I judge whether other people's work is good? Not sure that I do. Yet more sutff to mull over....

An entire day free of obligations. I honestly cannot remember the last time. [I always figured that days like this were what retirement would be like, but boy did I figure wrong.]

As a part of training my eye and hand for a new upcoming project, I've been drawing studies of Lee Holley's Ponytail panels from the early 60s. And I find myself learning [yet again] the lesson that comes from pretty much any 20th-century cartoonist: while the drawing may appear and feel pretty simple, it is deceptively simple. There is always a lot more intricate work involved than that. Always an inspiring eye-opener for me.