"FALL"-ing in love.
If there is a secret to triumphing over the inevitable dispossessions of age and its trusty sidekick existential despair, it has to be falling in love. And the light of Autumn? The air? The sense of possibility? It's like falling in love, this time every year (FALL-ing in love - get it?)
Everything deepens and enriches everything else.
I am what you might call a serial monogamist. I have been married for decades, I’ve had many of the same friends for longer than that, and I’ve kept at this (monkey) business of being an artist far longer than certain family members thought advisable. Ha!
Somehow or other this serial monogamist keeps on falling in love.
By now you’ve deduced I’m not so much talking about falling in love with another person as much as falling in love with, well, the world around you! With the leaves twirling in the air. With a perfect cup of coffee. With that new friend. With the way the sky looks over there. With the new song I’m writing.
This love -- and what grows out of it -- is deepened and enriched by every other time I’ve ever been in love, with anyThing or anyOne else.
Fast forward to today. I still can’t help photographing things that catch my eye, but these days I am loving making a drawing, taking a photo of it, and exploding it into shapes and color as the basis for a haiku.
The burst of joy I get from doing that is very like the other times I have fallen in love. And also, completely new. Sort of like a bridge between the past and the future. I almost always feel this way in the Fall.
I might think about those people, places and things from times past or a hoped-for future. And while they might find their way into the words of a song or a Haiku, it’s more that they keep me company, holding my hand as I traverse the new path, helping to ease the passage as the new is born from the old.
Everything deepens and enriches everything else.
It’s a great gift to be an artist. If you’re reading this I’m guessing you already know that. But did you know how grateful I am for you being part of my creative journey? It bears repeating: I don’t take any of this, or you, for granted.
I’d love to hear what you think about this new direction, so drop me a line if you feel like it.
I hope none of us ever stops falling in love with the Fall, with life, and each other.
