Who can you blame?
Are the feelings unjust when a decision is a matter of knowing you must find fault or favour with the ill winds of change?
It is never enough to simply rearrange plans or predicaments. It is like making a prediction of all my flaws with my faith as fractured or fragile as it is, or has been.
Far easier to see what I haven’t been doing.
03/24/2023 j.g.l.
We tire of unpredictable weather, the damp morning chill, wet socks and lost mittens. Winter keeps reminding it is not through with us.
We have suffered long enough.
The streets are tired and dirty and the time change only makes things darker in the morning.
We need a brighter view.
We need, now, the renewal that comes with spring.
03/20/2023 j.g.l.
Progress comes less from planning than participation.
Dreams and wishes require action and attention.
Start moving.
03/19/2023 j.g.l.
I'm like a pencil;
sometimes sharp,
most days
well-rounded,
other times
dull or
occasionally
broken.
Still I write.
j.g. lewis
is a writer/photographer in Toronto.
Last August, feeling a bit down as COVID-19 stretched into another month of isolation and physical distancing, I decided to take a step that would force a little bit of happiness into me.
I undertook a one-month self-imposed ‘Art Immersion’.
There wasn’t a great deal of planning to it, and the plans continually evolved, but the essential theme was to take part in art each and every day.
I took my camera with me on my morning walks. I visited the art gallery weekly. I read about the artistic process of others, and I sketched and I wrote and I consciously created whenever I could.
One of my favourite activities was settling in for my ‘non-judgmental’ art sessions where I would paint by the lakes hore an hour or so at a time. It was concentration on the process, not the product.
I knew it was good for me.
I could feel it.
Come September, I settled back at my desk and made progress on a manuscript that had been bothering me for a while. For he next few months I approached everything with a little more vigor.
Art is my comfort zone.
Yesterday, while sipping my morning coffee in my usual park, I pulled out a pencil and sketchbook and admired the flowers on the trees in the 19th century garden. It wasn’t a long session, but it got me thinking.
I decided I was due for another ‘Art Immersion’.
Let’s face it, this whole COVID thing is hanging around longer than we thought possible, and I need to clear my mind of the confusion that seems to have settled in again. A little extra art, right now, would do me some good.
Now, I have a few specific projects in mind. I’ve got a manuscript that needs more attention and, in March, I started to, again, paint with oils. I’ve got a few large paintings underway, but I believe I need some more random hits of art, a few more trips to galleries, and a little more of an attitude adjustment.
I believe I need the stronger focus this month is intended to provide.
08/02/2021 j.g.l.
