IN-N-OUT #46
traveling to old places and finding new places instead
Dearest,
I’m back in California for my second April in the desert. How do you slow down time? The month is already half over and I don’t know how that could be.
Last year, I flew to NYC late March to visit friends, and then flew back to CA in April for work projects at Coachella and Stagecoach. This year is similar except I live in NY. The locations and the sites are all the same, but things have shifted. Bright lavender and orange flowers still sing off the sandy desert. My favorite blooming field still sways under a cloud-bloated sky passing a red sun. Long tall grasses dance in the wind, like nothing at all. Although the pictorial description is very much the same, old stories have already been flipped past. I couldn’t go back even if I were standing in the same field and wrote it all the same with my own hand. It’s not a bad thing. It just makes me want to cry. Now there are new characters. There are new challenges and new stories and new blessings. But the new came with letting go of what was.
This song, along with Carmen McRae’s delivery just about kills me… press play, then watch the video below as the music plays.
I’ve seen the summer turn to fall, before…
the joke November makes of May
YANG
It isn’t all tears. In fact I haven’t even shed one (which is odd for me). I’m so happy to see it all again. I’m glad to see my old roommates, happy and healthy. My old bedroom is still there, but half converted to Ronnie’s office. Love that she has a space of her own to work. I’m happy to feel different, like there has a bit of growth and evolution. I feel the yin and yang, which is good I think— it’s uncanny valley when I can only see the joy and terrible when I only see the sad. The thing with paradise is I know it won’t last and the thing with misery is I know isn’t a balanced view. Could it be I am finding my footing holding both?
FIN
It’s a short one while I’m traveling to and fro. I’ll be collecting photos of the scenes around me, making stuff, and there is more to come soon.
P.S.
I wanted to have certain film photos ready to accompany this letter, but frankly my penchant for perfectionism is very draining and bottlenecks my workflow a lot. So here it is. C’est la just doing it.
Yours,
Connie
One is nicely settled into one's routine, and then ...life happens. I know the feeling.
My friend Donna Dennis, the sculptor from NY, is launching a "new" book of her journal writings from when she was a young aspiring artist.
I hope you are saving your posts (for this is indeed journaling) for the future Connie. So you can look back on these tumultuous days and remember them..and maybe publish the collection, so the young artists can benefit from them.
We will all be old someday, gods willing.