Sunday, August 21, 2011

what's new

I think it would be a lot easier, in some ways, if my life had less variables to it. It's tempting to get an apartment near a city, get a salary job, go on vacation sometimes, take weekends off.

I can't describe my lifestyle in a general way because I don't know what to relate it to. Also, it changes too often to define - what I'm doing in one month feels completely different than the previous, from place-of-living to state-of-mind to daily routine. It feels like a good way for me to live, philosophically, but it takes work.

Maybe the best way to describe my life is to list some things I've done in the last week:

Figured out how to clear a stripped screw from a steel plate and rethread the hole with a tap.

Oil painted on big canvasses in barefeet outside in the sun. (This is what I'm mostly doing.)

Slept in the back of a truck on the side of the road, watching the moon and listening to owls and a distant house party.

Made notes on Interdisciplinary Graduate research proposals that would merge Ecology, Landscape Architecture, First Nations Studies, Architecture, and Community Planning.

Practiced swimming with a dry-bag containing a towel and camera. While treading water with my feet, opened the dry bag, dried my hands with the towel and took photos. I should just get a waterproof camera. (Photos still on the camera, they're kind of shit, but I'll post some good ones when get them, if I don't ruin the camera first).

Stood shoulder-deep in reeds at sunrise and listened to bugs and a bear crashing through the bush.

Sat on a couch in a storage unit for an hour, reading the rules to an immensely complicated game simulation of the Napoleonic Wars.

Figured out to make my own canvas stretchers and to stretch my own canvas.

Discussed how to make motion-captured Schnauzer installation art interact with an audience.

...

Sometimes it's hard to accept that I'm making a living at this. Funny, that. I guess I've been well-trained to believe that it's not possible.

3 comments:

  1. I live a very 'normal' life. Exactly the kind people read about in those text books they give you in second grade...minus the bi-racial marriage....

    But I'm open to all kinds of lives and think we all need to find the one that works for us. Even if it just works today, but maybe not tomorrow. whatev.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You have a tremendous amount of creative energy, and it's great that you're at a time of your life when you can really look at and decide on the direction you want to go in.
    Sounds like a good trajectory to me!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for the comments, you two!

    I have a feeling that I will constantly be reassessing my life and considering new directions. I enjoy being in that kind of place, where a lot is happening and a lot of things have the potential to happen.

    I don't think my future will be any more certain than the present (is it for anyone?), so the challenge is to accept that constant state of flux, and find stillness within it.

    ReplyDelete