Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl

Experience Makes You Confident

April 3, 2021by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-OwlLeave a Comment

There is no real confidence without experience. What we know without hesitation is the outcome of experience. Everything else is guessing.

To get experience you have to do the thing, the whole thing. You have to go from A to Z, from here to there, from beginning to end. And when you do, you know more, and you are secure in the knowledge of what you know.

Read about fire. Think about fire. Look at pictures of fire. Draw images of fire. Do you know fire?

Stick your hand in fire. You know fire.

Stick a raw potato in fire. Eat a cooked potato. You know fire.

If someone asks, Should I stick my hand in fire?, will you be insecure telling them no? If someone asks, Will fire cook food?, will you wonder if it does? Of course not.

That’s the confidence that comes from experience.

Art, Creative Process, Sidewalk Faces

Observation

March 28, 2021by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl4 Comments

I spotted something that surprised me and makes me wonder how observation works. Previous to this I would have defined it as intentional, something I was trying to do, an active activity. Now I think there is a subconscious component.

I was walking the dogs at night and we passed by a house with some calla lilies in front of it. I wasn’t looking at the flowers or the house directly. I wasn’t actively looking at or for anything. I was just doing the dogs. Something compels me to turn around and check out this one flower, I sense there might be a face there. I resist a little because it’s dark so who cares. But I do it. Yup! That’s a face. I see a face. I get out my iPhone and shoot the photo below. Nothing. Let me try again. I hold very still and shoot a few more and move on.

The low light makes them crappy photographs but wow, there is someone there. How did I see this? As best I can recall, I would say my unconsciousness saw him out of the corner of my eye. I guess making faces for five and half years has built up a robust face finding perception. It can’t be turned off. Even when I think it’s off it’s not.

I suspect this works with anything we practice daily. We get so attuned to what we pay attention to that it becomes unconscious. Some people can read other people’s moods just from the way they walk in a room. Someone else sees a luscious red pepper and instantly visualizes a whole meal. I was sitting next to my dad in church as a teenager and he suddenly exclaimed and wrote something down. Very unusual for this stoic and contained man. Later he told me he’d finally solved a math problem that had been bothering him since college. Where did the answer come from? What part of him was working on it? He was a problem solver. I hadn’t thought about it until now, but an unsolved problem must have really bugged him. His brain was attracted to creating solutions. We engage with what is interesting to us. We don’t even have to try; we just do it. That’s how you know what really interests you. It is that which pulls your attention subconsciously.

It’s easier to develop observation as a skill if there is an affinity for what is being observed. My brother observes license plates. I know this because he’s always filling me in on the latest developments. He’s all excited and he’ll say, Caren, I saw a brand-new Toyota with an 8H today! And I’m like, no way dude! Tell me more! Before he started chewing my ear about it, I had never, ever noticed or thought about the sequence of numbers and letters on a license plate and they are everywhere. How many do I see a day? Hundreds? He has brought it up in conversation at least a dozen times. Because he is so passionate, his enthusiasm rubs off on me for a few days. I will notice numbers like crazy and have fun with it. But soon it all slips away because that is not what I am actually interested in.

I am less observant when I am stressed. I block out what I can’t control and don’t want to deal with like laundry that needs to be folded and empty boxes lining the hallway. If my observations are only going to add to my to do list than No Thank You. But there are things I wish I observed that I miss. Birthdays. Following up with people I care about regarding information they’ve shared. Remembering to eat the leftover mashed potatoes before they turn gross. I am pulled in so many directions, I miss things I don’t want to miss. But apparently, even in the dark, I don’t miss a face.

Dogs, Humor, Relationships

Intimacy

March 23, 2021March 23, 2021by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl2 Comments

What is intimacy? What is the best barometer to register whether or not you have it? I’ll tell ya straight up. It’s the presence of poop.

If you can tell who’s been in the bathroom just by the smell, congratulations, you have intimacy.

You also need to buy some Simple Truth Odor Eliminator room spray which they sell at Ralphs. Awesome stuff.

Please bear with me. Or leave while pinching your nose. I’m sorry in advance. But I really do have something to say about what nonromantic intimacy is, it’s value (very high) and it’s price (very high).

I am an observer of the mundane. I suppose we all are, but I tend to really mull it over. And I’ve noticed that that which is the most meaningful to me, is bound up in physical, animal biology. The more I value something, the closer I seem to be to its turds. Let’s start with the dogs. And disclaimer. I am not, repeat NOT, going to get graphic. I am not a third grader. I want to amuse you and maybe goose you into alternate perspective, I don’t want to disgust you.

I pick up approximately half the poops pooped by my pooches. My husband picks up the other half. I am pretty sure I am more intimate with my dogs than with any other living creatures. They sleep in bed with us. Decaf, the male dog prefers to sleep between me and my husband with just his head poking out of the sheets just like a human. It’s so freaking cute. I marvel at it almost every day. I know I can reach an arm over and give him a firm snuggle and he will not resist. He is totally there for me. That’s intimacy.

The wedding of availability and trust, he is there for me without fear and I am there for him without harm. I know I can count on him. The price for this great gift? Poop.

If we lived in the woods or on a large tract of land the price would be cheaper, but I would still be responsible for his basic needs. It’s not so much that I have to actually physically deal with it (though as a city dweller I do) it’s that I am responsible for him and I can’t casually come and go from that arrangement. That’s where intimacy comes in, it’s the fruit of unbroken tending.

With humans, we can mostly skip this arrangement except with very young children, very old kin and the unlucky. I am not going to tackle all that now as I live with my husband and a 16-year-old. If I could keep all my doings in this arena utterly private I gladly would. I assume those with multiple bathrooms take advantage to protect each other from total intimacy. We only have one and so unfortunately, we often know much more about each other’s animal activities than anyone desires. But there is a positive flip side to this annoying lack of privacy and that is humor of being known. Humor is perhaps the best way to demonstrate you know someone. We know each other over here and it’s not underrated.

We bypass this specific level of intimacy with friends, which is precisely what is so great about friends. But poop is just a metaphor. The friends we know best, we’ve metaphorically passed by their recently used bathroom. We’ve seen them in tears, we’ve heard them yell and scream, we’ve felt annoyed by them and yet we don’t leave. Intimacy is access to the full range. Intimacy is knowledge of the full range. Intimacy is measured in the width of the barrier. If you can smell it, the barrier is quite thin.