Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl

Anatomy of an Idea – Beach Day Valentine

September 22, 2021by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl4 Comments

This is how I came to write the previous blog post, Beach Day Valentine.

#1 Go to the beach many times and love it.

As of this sentence I have not written Beach Day Valentine (though you may have read it). I wrote this essay first. We will come back to that. Let’s go chronologically.

#2 Have the thought, while at the beach, of writing a blog post about the beach.

This is the least controllable part. You either have an initiating thought or you don’t. It’s the next step that you have control over and is critical to manifesting.

#3 Immediately take a few photos to illustrate the blog post.

If you have a good idea, it’s best to act on it as soon as possible. Any action will be more fruitful than no action. You can’t do anything with nothing, but you can add to something. Waiting never helps. Doing something is always best. If it’s fun, it doesn’t even take effort. That’s why I like both art and exercise to be fun. Much better chance of something happening.

#4 Look at the photos and choose the ones I want to use.

This gets my creative juices flowing. Looking at photos is way easier than writing. The images remind me of what I want to say.

#5 Start the post and write the title.

I start with Beach Day. Then I write the following sentence. This is not a very interesting title, but it doesn’t need to be. Beach Days are the best.

Dud title and a dud first sentence!

Oh well! I have to start somewhere. I persevere hoping things will improve. I write a bit more and give up. I am not even close to saying what I want to say. Somehow, I am saying a bunch of stuff I definitely don’t want to say. Writing is weird.

I have a new idea. I think I should stick with my first idea but the new idea is really compelling me, so I act on it.

#6 Start writing this second blog post, the one you are reading now.

Both frustrated that I wasn’t getting down to business with the post I was supposed to be writing and excited by my new idea, writing about the writing process, I start this post. Now I have two posts with titles and a few paragraphs.

#7 Finish and publish Beach Day Valentine.

A day later I write the whole thing. I still don’t have a better idea for the title. I’m on the verge of just accepting a boring title. I write a final paragraph (one that got removed) and in it I use the phrase Beach Day Valentine. That’s it!

This happens to me a lot. I am not sure how the whole thing will land or if it will land. I only figure it out while doing the activity. I just write and write and write, and edit and edit and edit, until it all comes together. It’s usually at the very end, after several rounds of editing, that the ending becomes clear. I never know the ending at the beginning.

The beginning is always only a hunch, an itch, a maybe.

#8 Come back to this post to see if it’s actually interesting or was only a stupid diversion.

Ideas begat ideas. It’s fun to explore them, to act swiftly and without thinking. Not in real life, that’s dangerous, but in one’s creative life it’s more than okay, it’s the whole thing.

Striving to Be Better

Beach Day Valentine

September 21, 2021September 21, 2021by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl11 Comments

During the summer I try to go to the beach every weekend. It’s about a thirty minute drive. It seems wrong not to go that often. The ocean is the best thing going in Los Angeles. Hands down, the very best thing. And the weather. The two together are peanut butter and jelly.

When I first moved here, 19 years ago, I was bemoaning the lack of big, leafy trees, the lack of deciduous forest. Do you know what that is? It’s what they have on the East Coast and in Europe. It’s the type of tree that sheds it’s leaves every season and gives you autumn. It doesn’t happen without a lot of rain. California is more desert -y than deciduous. We don’t have to shovel snow and wear mittens, but we also don’t get much tree canopy. The sun is always present. For a while I was longing for shade and forest. Oh woah is me, how can I be happy? Where can I go for long walks and reflection? The location nearest me with the highest portion of wet nature was the beach. So, as the song says, if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with. Well guess what, I married the one I was with and I’ve never been happier.

Some of this is due to discovering the boogie board. The alliteration makes it sound goofy and there are no other phrases for it, but boogie boarding is the most spiritually enjoyable thing in the whole world. To Boogie Board is to become one with the ocean. It is to dial in all your senses to the rhythm of the ocean. You watch the waves, you hear them, you feel them, you anticipate them. You are trying to catch them, so you can ride them. In that moment you and the wave merge, you are the ocean, with all its power, its consistency, its vastness. The motion wipes all petty concerns from your tired, over amped monkey mind, and you just fly through the water, all senses completely in harmony. For a brief while, there are no human problems.

After I tire myself out, I eat a sandwich. It tastes so good. Then I watch the ocean for a while. I watch the people play. Humanity is at its absolute best at the ocean. Everyone is happy. You don’t haul yourself out there if you don’t want to be there, so the people who get grumpy and uptight about sand in their ass self-select out. The scene is incredibly diverse. Children playing, old people relaxing, young people being hot, married people playing paddle ball, groups of friends laughing it up over whatever bonds them together. It’s marvelous. It’s harmonious. It’s soul regenerating. It’s the opposite of being online. It’s the opposite of reading the news.

After digesting, I take myself for a long walk. I could look at wet sand and rolling water forever. I don’t know why. It just appeals to be. As an artist I like theme and variation. This is that. The beach is like my therapist. I peruse the thoughts that need untangling and I get a grip on myself.

Coincidently, while writing this, my favorite blogger, Dyske.com, also wrote about the beach. His wife loves to go, and he does not. It was interesting to be confronted by his complete lack of interest in my favorite activity. It forced me to consider that not everyone reading this would relate. Why does that make me feel weird? I already know that. Besides my immediate family, I don’t know anyone who goes on and on and on and on about the beach as much as me.

What I find at the beach, other people find elsewhere and that is as it should be. The world is filled with wonders, natural and manmade. The important thing is to partake of what brings you genuine joy as often as you can. Don’t chose a lesser option when you can choose joy.

Parenting, wisdom

Is It the Young People or Is It Me?

September 9, 2021by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl3 Comments

I was talking with some mothers I hadn’t seen in ages, due to the pandemic and because none of us live in the same state. We were enjoying the pleasures of in person engagement while sitting together at an open-air food court. Of course, we talked a lot about our teen age kids. I’ve known one of these women since our kids bonded in preschool, we’ve done this journey together.

As we were catching up, I was having a bit of that what is wrong with kids today feeling. I am never sure if this is because kids have changed or because I am older and in the stage of life where I would feel this no matter what kids were doing. It’s just that at some point in life you start to be old enough that young people freak you out. It’s really hard to know if it’s your fault or their fault.

I am telling myself that it is my fault and not to indulge this impulse. I see it all around me and I don’t like it. I think it’s the first slip on the downward slope to curmudgeonville. For the love of all that’s good in the world, don’t let me end up there! I’d rather die young. Too late for that but you get what I am saying.

Watching my child become an adult feels so intense, like the most challenging experience of my life. But is it? Or does everything feel like that because everything is always in the now and the now always feels more intense than the future or the past?

I suspect the later. It’s all intense and challenging all the time. It was intense and challenging when I was young. It’s intense and challenging now. I think worrying about young people being different than they used to be is wrong. The difference in perception is more attributable to different developmental stages then different cultural moments. We freaked our parents out and now it’s our turn to be freaked.

But being freaked out is a choice, it’s a reaction we could adjust. I am mostly freaked out because I want to know my kid will be ok like I am ok. I want to sort of bypass all the decades of learning from experience and know my kid will be where I am at. But that makes no sense. Do I want my kid to miss all that interesting stuff just so they can be worrying about their kids?

Worrying about other people is just a way to take the heat off of ourselves. Maybe I wouldn’t be so scared if everyone else was perfect. But I am the only thing I have control over and so I am going to assume I am the problem in the question that is the title of this essay. I am going to look for the good. There is plenty there.

What I have noticed is my kid is better when I am better. That could translate to, the young people are better when the older people are better. So, get your act together older people. The young people need us!