i think i'm falling into a kind of rhythm, even with the interruptions of illness and work. it's getting to be about six or seven days or so... i think one of the "rate limiting steps" is drawing. i think i prefer to be uninterrupted in drawing, and i don't have a lot of long segments of time that allow me to do that. i'm getting better at drawing (i think), particularly faces... i think i'm starting to "see" value. i still can't grasp color. it seems color is so mysterious to me. i have a hard time distinguishing colors, and "mixing" them to match what i see. skin, for example, can seem orange or grey or pink or yellow or brown, all depending upon the play of light upon it. there is no "objective" color. indeed, in reality, there is no "objective" (i.e. fixed) anything... everything is relative, relative to observer, relative to light, etc.
i also haven't kept up with my taijiquan. as i may have mentioned, i'm gradually going through adam mizner's course. i really like his teaching; it is clear, and grounded in practice and experience... i'm proceeding through the form, which is basically cheng man ching's 37-form. don't know much about lineages, but i do know that cheng man ching was a famous taijiquan instructor, i believe in america, but i'm not sure. from what i've seen of him, he seemed like the idealized chinese sage; he dressed kind of shabbily, but his movements were poetic. he seemed a happy, peaceful, grounded person. interested in art, like calligraphy... that's, i guess, what i'd like to be like.
i have been reading more. in my "routines," i'm supposed to read 3 chapters. generally, it's 3 chapters in 3 separate books. so i kind of keep my mind preoccupied with different narratives. i'd finished "olive kitteridge," and before that, "cloud in the shape of a girl"; both were insightful "stories" about the experience of women; the former focused on the difficulty of "living" past death- beyond the death of a loved one, beyond the death of youth and possibility... and the "hunger" for love, as the surrogate of life lost. the latter was about women, yes, as hinted in the title, but particularly about women as the continuity (even fraught) of fractured families. i almost saw the men in the story (a father and son) as being like these immature, trauma-seeking children... inexplicably drawn to their own destruction... and the female figures being the imperfect and sacrificing mediators of those conflicts...
right now, the novel i'm really into is "sons and lovers" by d.h. lawrence. i hadn't read anything by d.h. lawrence before; hadn't known about his supposedly scandalous and pornographic novel, "lady chatterly's lover." in any case, the story is pretty salacious in itself (although it doesn't go into the "details")... well, salacioius to me. the story (which is supposed to be somewhat autobiographical) goes into paul's conflicts in love. on the one hand, he wants miriam, who is his "spiritual" love, and another woman (married, but who lives apart from her husband)... the third (or fourth) party to this situation is paul's mother, who holds undue influence and sway upon him... hence, the title, "sons and lovers."
*****
i got to have my work ("kappa noodle") read by a few established actors. it was a wonderful experience. the actors brought their own interpretations to the characters, and really brought the piece to life. i'm inspired now to continue the work. sure, it has points that drag, but from the feedback from the actors, it seems like it has some legs... i've been thinking a lot about how to continue the plot, and particularly how to continue it without seeming too patterned and predictable... i feel somewhat optimistic at the moment.
in any case, that's all that's really going on in my life... some strange and vivid dreams lately, but nothing to write about. i love sleep nowadays. somehow, maybe it's the change in season, but work seems like such a bother and interruption from my dreaming other life.
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