I’d rather watch the mourning doves

I’d rather watch them preen

I’d rather watch them peck at each others necks, grasp beaks, bob back and forth

I’d rather watch one soft, gray feather float to the earth against the backdrop of a foggy morning sky and then disappear behind an olive tree — mint green leaves

I’d rather watch that tree sway gently in the quiet breeze, its motion almost imperceptible, not old enough yet to hold the weight of a dove but branches that reach for the sky anyway

Only one dove remains now, the male, perched on the electrical line that hangs over my front yard, over the olive tree

He turns his head to the side, the bird, I see him looking. Does he see the swirl and ache of the tree? The swirl and ache of me?

Creativity is freedom

To make people free is the aim of art. Therefore, art for me is the science of freedom. [Joseph Beuys]

A creative brain puts ideas to use in unexpected ways. A creative brain uses contrasting combinations of thoughts to foster new ones. A creative brain can:

reinvent

reimagine

rethink.

I’m reoutfitting my art studio for a music studio. It all happened because I bought a drum kit this weekend from a friend who had just happened to decide she wanted to sell it a few days prior to me mentioning I wanted to take drum lessons. Are you interested in it? she asked. I’ll take it, I said.

Serendipity.

Once I reimagined my art studio into something that inspired me, something more useful, it surprisingly gave me a new vision for my art practice (aside from drums!).

Collage is not inspiring me right now and really hasn’t been for months. Even the materials have been off-putting to me? Even looking at my past work is bothering me. It just feels not-good.

At the same time I’ve been casually thinking about painting. It’s been a little bee buzzing around in my mind. In the past, my love of cleanliness has made me wary of painting. Paint is messy. But I had a vision that I could paint outside in my courtyard. Less messy somehow. This inspired me.

Creativity isn’t about about being good or bad at collage or painting or drums. Creativity is the ability to create your future, to follow your aliveness, to be fully present and in charge of your life.

So often we filter out thoughts that don’t fit our immediate purpose or idea of what should happen. I hate the word ‘should’ for this reason. It’s a buzz kill. It can leave us stuck, unconsciously policing creative thinking, the very thinking that can set us free.

Group Therapy: Week 3

Here we are, week 3 of Group Therapy. It’s a playlist. 5 new songs every Friday to save your sanity. And I’m having so much fun with it.

As I was obsessively fiddling with the order of these songs yesterday, I was flashing back to being a teen at Tower Records. They had these listening stations in the back of the store. I’d go station to station, slipping in and out of headphones, listening to new music.

There’s something about listening to music with headphones on and there’s something about really listening to music, you know?

Something I love about new music these days? The genre bending. What on earth am I listening to? is a thing I often say to myself while listening to a lot of this new stuff. Like, sometimes when you listen to a song, you can put it in a bucket: this sounds like indie rock, emo, this is post rock, whatever.

And other times, it’s like, what is this?? And I love that.

Genres are really just marketing tools, making it easier for brains to put things in buckets because brains like to do that.

But I’ll tell you what. Genre is meaningless. And it’s probably actually great for your brain to have to try and figure something out for once, rather than have it determined ahead of time for you.

Today’s 5 will bend your mind. They are effortlessly cool. I hope you turn them up and spend time with them, preferably with headphones.

Oh! and congrats to two new faves on dropping new music today: Broncho (who you’ll find on this list) release new album Natural Pleasure and Wishy, Planet Popstar EP.

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