shower power

     Luxuriating in my morning shower, everything is crystal clear.  I know where I’m going.  I understand everyone’s lives.  I am pure love.  Ideas and inspiration rise exuberantly with the steam.  I would love to create a Beaker and Bunsen/ Mr. Peabody machine to pipette all of it into a bottle for safekeeping. I could line the bottles up in the bookcase in my studio, ready to be decanted whenever I feel confused, discouraged or in need of direction. 

     I came across an article by Calvin Tomkins in The New Yorker about Scottish painter Peter Doig’s life and works.  “Accidents, mistakes, and unforeseen discoveries figure to some degree in the work of most artists, but Doig is a virtuoso of the unpredictable.” He has catapulted through life, trusting his whims at every turn. The dictionary definition of whim include words like capricious, eccentric, often sudden idea or turn of the mind, a sudden wish or idea, especially one that cannot be reasonably explained.

This reminds me that age 72 is no time to feel timid.  

     Life can feel small and inconsequential in the day to day, but the overall story can be glorious.  Which is more important? Daydreaming about that novella-in-flash festival in Bath or stopping on the sidewalk to hear the old man’s story? My shower-self knows the answer.  Everything is sacred, from the passion to create, to the old man on the sidewalk, to sitting quietly to stare out at the sea.