Pieces of Universe on my Desk
My mind outraces my body at times. I was sitting here watching a video on watercolor painting, because it's been so long since I picked up a paintbrush, and my hands ache with the memory of creating in that specific way. I painted, digitally, yesterday. But it didn't feel the same. It's not that it's any less art. It's just different. Digital is so much easier, though, that even when I crave the physical act of bristles on paper and watching the paint work it's magic, my brain is there saying oh, I want that... while my body is cold and crowded and saying 'I can't. Hurts too much.' There's far more than just the act of picking up brush and paint and paper, you see. I'd have to clean a space, and find scattered tools, and...
It's a metaphor for life. What isn't? If you sit and think long enough, everything is life. From my cup of cooling coffee, half-drunk, to the phone shoved on the messy desk. The phone that is a portal from mundane reality into another world of the internet. Where all my friends are, and I can go to have conversations with artists about art, and to debate the merits of homeschooling across thousands of miles while I am in my own office chair with legs crossed neatly under me. Life is scattered, and seldom predictable. You put that 'thing' in a safe place, but later? Good luck finding it. It will be in the last place you look, because you will stop looking when you find it.
You stop looking when you find it because who has the time and energy to waste looking further? Why would you do that? It's a cliche, but cliches exist for a reason. They encapsulate a truth in a wry statement. A clean desk is the sign of disordered mind... because most of us wind up with messy desks, like mine is right now. If it were clean, it would be because I couldn't bear the thought of creating and I was cleaning to avoid writing, art, paying bills, or whatever else I was troubled by. Except when I'm in a clean, ordered environment, I am freed to pursue my whimsies. It's a conundrum.
Fortunately, I never have long to sit here and ponder the mysteries of the universe, or at least the bits of the universe that have wound up stacked on my desk. I have to find shoes and take the Little Man to his game, and do some dishes when I get back in the house. There are other tasks, some more pleasant and not at all chore-like, and a whole weekend to get my list of 'musts' complete in. Perhaps I'll find a way to slip some painting into a moment here and there. Perhaps not. Writing is easier, as long as there's nothing on my keyboard. Hence this post.