creative life | today is pretty

evening light: a study

Posted on August 6, 2013 by sheri

the boys were very patient while i played with the evening light in the kitchen tonight. getting there. but not quite there (would help if i knew what i was doing haha). loving the details in the sunset light in the first shot and the rich black (and that white ice cube tray on the left) in the second shot. of course, i only wish i had a big lovely tree out my window rather than my neighbor’s house. but oh well.

not sure what i did to deserve these perfect, patient (tonight) boys. they blow my mind. and they don’t even seem to think i’m that crazy. shhh, don’t tell them.

p.s. just looked at this on PC and wow, just for-getta-bout the rich black thing i’m talking about. nothing like the mac.

this inspires me

Posted on August 5, 2013 by sheri

Screen Shot 2013-08-05 at 9.29.40 PM

the killing

the killing shoes converse

i do love the killing, but quite possibly i love the art direction even better than the show. i just watch and drool over its perfectly moody cinematography, all doused in a blue-green haze. and my god, the blacks. they are the richest blacks. everything is dark, dreary, and gorgeous. now all i want to do is stand in my kitchen at 8pm — where there’s a similar blue-gray filtering on a good evening — and try to capture something half as beautiful as some of the scenes in that show. those kitchen window scenes!!! that tree out the window. gasp!

the urge

Posted on August 4, 2013 by sheri

the urge, that pesky creative one, is really nagging at me. i can feel it, taste it, the weight of it is an extra heavy thing to carry. it’s an itch i can’t seem to scratch. unable to find my writing groove. reading more of what i want to read isn’t catching my ass on fire. the photographs i take look like the same old photographs i’ve always taken. i’ve even been considering setting up a tiny painting studio in my office — even though i can’t paint a lick. can’t tell it to go the eff away. tried that too. ed jokingly suggested taking up scrapbooking because he knows he can’t really help me find the thing that’s going to fill that gaping hole right now. i know that, but i still look to him with big sad eyes and beg for help.

maybe it’s hormones, i like to think. i’m finally making my descent into becoming that unsatisfiable old lady i always knew i’d be. maybe it’s early onset empty nest syndrome, i wonder. the boys are getting bigger, needing me less, heading out into lives of their own, just like i always wanted. good god, i need to get a life that’s all my own, i whine. i am dyyyyyying, i moan. there really must be a better way. surely i’m thinking too much. doing too little. but it does’t feel like that at all. it feels like i can’t … do … anything and so i mentally beat myself to a pulp about it.

but here’s a thought — and it’s a good, tough one that goes against everything i actually feel — maybe i just need to feel this. maybe i don’t suck because i can’t figure it out right now. maybe i’m not a horrible writer because i’m not writing miraculous prose just like that. maybe figuring it out is the thing i need. figuring it out or learning to sit with it, feel it. endure the discomfort because something it happening, changing, percolating, about to be revealed. maybe i don’t have to think of my insatiable urge as suffering (even if it sure as hell feels like suffering). maybe change and new paths are hard to find and perhaps that’s okay.

i am alive and full of creative energy and i want more. there are many worse things than that.

half & half

Posted on August 2, 2013 by sheri

quote by jane austen; print by Ex Libris Journal

god, is it scary this quote just feels so completely right on? kinda makes me laugh, kinda makes me cry … obviously! haha. i wonder. is this a definition most artists would find fitting? we feel it big no matter which way we’re feeling and we’re always feeling pulled by both poles? i’ve had moments where i found a pile of fruit dropped from a tree incredibly agonizing. but a dead mockingbird, wings pulled in tight, as if it were sleeping peacefully on its back, that was so beautiful, hopeful even.

is this just what it means to be human? is this definition i find so completely comforting indeed comforting? or is it the definition you’ll find in the DSM under some cruel mental disorder?

i find waiting for your responses both agonizing and hopeful.

the ‘F’ word

Posted on July 25, 2013 by sheri

bear with me while i continue my just one paragraph a day challenge (the photo a day is just a cherry on top). and just think, if you can’t stand what i’m writing here, you can always join the challenge yourself and do better. in fact, i daaaaare you.

the other day i wrote: there’s simply so much to say and no way to say it. but now, after a couple days of showing up here and trying to get my writing engine going again, i realize that wasn’t the truth. not even remotely the truth.

here is the truth:

there’s simply so much to say and i’m too afraid to say it.

so there it is. yesterday, a post i started about changes i’ve seen in life turned into a weird review of The Sopranos. yep, i went in to write about life, experience, change and wound up veering off into thinking about all the ways Paulie Gualtieri and Christopher Moltisanti get their hearts broken on that show. don’t worry. i’m not going to go all mob psychoanalytical on you again. i’m onto myself. i know what i’m doing. i can smell the fear. i can taste it.

but the real question is: can i and will i be able to write through the fear? i’ve done it before, and i’m pretty sure our ability to write even when we’re scared doesn’t expire with age. so stay tuned to find out. (or did you already leave to go write something better? um, link please!)