i'm worried. my wife is sick. she had a sore throat on thursday, and today, she's been feeling feverish and slightly weak. tomorrow, we're going to get her tested, to find out if what she has is covid. if she is positive, then the rest of us, who have been in close contact, will then test as well.
i'm mainly worried because my wife is getting up there in age, and is in a vulnerable category. i don't want anything bad to happen to her. i don't think i could take it.
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i had a slow start today. i worked on my plants. i watered the crops. i turned the compost pile and even peed in it a bit to give it some nitrogen. i added more water to the aquaponics tanks (for some reason, the water tends not to drain from the grow beds fast enough, often leading to a situation where the pump is almost dry, and the water level in the fish tank is critically low- fish swimming on their side and such). i then began to weed. i'm looking at weeding in a different light, now that i'm doing composting. instead of being a purely "negative" task (i.e., removing something bad), i look upon it as also being a "positive" task, in the sense that i'm gathering green (nitrogenous) waste to help me build another compost pile. it's a win-win.
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i did my routines again. i finished reading the next set of chapters from berserk and one piece. and then, i drew a picture of a topless woman. i'm getting better at drawing faces, i think. i'm only using two colors, because i'm still getting acquainted with the use of color. i draw the dark parts first, like the hair, or the shadows, or the pupils. basically, the dark lines create the contours of the entire picture. i also lightly shade, and i guess because these pencils are pretty crappy, i'm able to do very light shading effectively (if the pencils were bolder, then they'd be far too visible to be subtle). i then use a lighter color (white in this case) to highlight where the light hits the figure...
after drawing, i played the piano. i think on certain days, i'm really pretty good. i don't make as many mistakes, and i feel as though i'm able to convey emotion (dynamics, phrasing) through the pieces...
oh yeah, while i was drawing... i recall something that shodo (the monk that i stayed with in japan) either mentioned or implied. he said that it's best to do things quickly, almost in a rush. when you do things slowly, then there is too much thinking going on, and you become separated from your task. you have to accelerate things to the point where you don't "think" or "react" but you just dive right in. related to this was his admonition to not hesitate.
so when i was drawing, i tried to follow that advice. i didn't pause overly long. i just tried to keep my pencil and my eye constantly moving, going from one shape to the next.
i'm trying to do that with my writing as well... here's the present "plan" for my modus operandi. i will write almost stream of consciousness stuff but focused loosely on a story i'm working on. i'm going to fill an entire notebook with this stuff. then, i'm going to review it and highlight anything that seems worthy of incorporation into the story itself. then, i'll sit and attempt to piece everything together.
i imagined that this was like catching the glints of sunlight off the water. it is like gathering the ephemeral but true nature of things. and then, the later steps are like stitching together or focusing all of those fragments of light to effect; creating a consistent narrative from the "true" fragments of consciousness.
that's the plan, anyway.
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