30 December 2009

From Mind to Matter





Is it still homesickness missing places, times, and people who simply aren't anymore?  Isn't that just living in the past?  My mind has been playing a slide show at light speed, split-second images and impressions of pure joy, inspiration, beauty, contentment:  flashes of golden green summer days, times laughing with my mother, glimpses of holiday dinners with loved ones.  But what about when it isn't even my past?  Scenes I've only imagined splash over my mind's eye like longing:  a room full of warm sunlight, shag carpet, and macrame plant hangers; plush couches, fire roaring in the grate, and velvet drapes; clean, sleek, Swedish living-spaces.  Every one of these images barely registers before it has passed, to leave a yearning for something precious… just out of reach.  I want to plaster these scenes on the walls of my life, to pour them into the grey and empty spaces, to connect them one to the next until they propel me into making art and substance and deep satisfaction.  If I could just hold them a little longer, long enough to recognize what is there that speaks so eloquently to my heart and spirit, perhaps then I could fashion even a reflection of it here in the real world.

But the real world is constrained by my own inability to bring to form the images in my mind, not to mention already filled with dark, shabby antique decor which is not mine to replace.  How do I begin to create these marvelous scenes when I can barely remember them?  One image at a time: for every splash of inspiration, I must cling to one thing in it, draw it into existence, enough for memory to sustain it into being.  Then I will call it my art.


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