Time indeed flies, Dear Reader. Even as I’m writing this I am running late for tonight’s festivities – which I hope will be more relaxing than festive (Lord knows I could use the rest).
Tomorrow marks seven months since the birth of my son and those months have been a whirlwind. Between baby, day job and creative project there hasn’t been time much else – and on top of that we are in the middle of renovations for pending apartment sales.
But…no rest for the wicked, eh?
By today I had voted to give you all another preview of the comic In involved in, and I was hoping to draw and publish my homage to Carrie Fisher (may she rest in place). Alas, life had different plans for me, but I’ll get there.
The first three months of 2017 will be every bit as hectic as the last three months of 2016 have been, but after that I hope things will have settled enough for me to really step up my efforts on Lady Phantom.
Time waits for no man, though – and so I wish you a Happy New Year.
“The most fantastic thing about the present time is that we’re actually still here.”
—William Gibson
Another day, another year, another lap around old Sol.
This past year has probably been among the best years of my life, despite all the tragedy and confusion taking place over the world. We lost a whole slew of Great Artists, the like of which I’m not sure humanity can produce still.
My life went from calm and carefree to super-busy and full of responsibility.
Photo by Timjan Dahlén
I know it’s cliché to say it, but parenthood really does change you in ways you can’t fully understand until you are there, holding a helpless little human who somehow managed to hijack your entire existence.
The journey of self-discovery and self-reconciliaton I began last year entered a new phase, and so did my creative pursuits.
As a result of everything else, the blog here had to take the back seat. But that’s okay. I started it mostly for myself, and even though I’ve managed to get some very loyal (and highly appreciated) followers I still write as much for my own sake add for anything else.
Life changes, but it keeps moving forward – relentlessly – until with a little luck we are too old to die young.
As you all know by now, yet another music legend has lost his bout with cancer.
David Bowie was not only a varied and talented musician, he was also a varied and avid reader. Follow the link below to see a list of 100 of his favorite books, courtesy of Lincoln Michel at Electric Lit:
I’m not usually one for new year’s resolutions. Instead I tend to do my own version or resolutions and restarting at the start of my personal year – my birthday.
This year, however, is special.
December was unusually hectic for me (in truth, January won’t be much better, but I won’t let that stop me…I hope) and thus I have decided on taking a more traditional approach on this new year’s day.
Each month I will pick one ’30 days to/of/for…’-type book to follow snd complete. At least for the first six months. I have a selection lined up, but haven’t quite decided which book goes with which month yet. Except the first. Chuck Wendig’s’30 Days in the Word Mines’ will kick-start my year (and, incidentally, my new writing project). Also, I will restart my exercise regime (yeah, yeah, I know, that’s what everyone says), but that’s not all:
The new year also sees a slight upgrade on this blog.
I have redesigned my logo a bit, subtly altered the font here, added social media links, and there will be more updates in the coming months. My plan was to roll out a bigger overhaul today, but, well…like I said it’s been a busy December. Things will just have to take a bit more time.
Here’s hoping 2016 will be good to you and those you care about!
“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” — Victor Hugo
Six months ago today, I started on a personal journey.
The ride since then has been wild and shaky and bumpy, but now things seems to have settled and I am back where I started – only stronger, wiser and better than ever before.
I have come full circle.
The track is laid out before me and I am sure of where I am going – both personally and professionally – for the first time in years.
Now the next stretch of this journey awaits.
Things will likely stay hectic and wild and bumpy. They always do, in life – nothing ever goes according to plan. But this time around at least there is a map of sorts to follow.
All of the major crossroads are behind me, for now.
That’s not to say the journey ahead is fully mapped out by any means – there will be choices and uncertainties, surprises and conundrums. But this train is going places! I’m back on track, full of motivation, stoking the engine.
“If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.” ―Adm. William H McRaven
Dear Reader – have you ever considered the impossible entity that is us?
The complex web of human interaction stretching across this globe in order to make the modern world go ’round? How every day, millions upon millions of humans are working toward one single goal; for one single purpose? From the ranch hand in Kansas to the miner in China to the broker in Tokyo – every one, connected.
We are interdependent yet truly replaceable cells in the neural network that makes up mankind.
We all have a purpose and a role to play – every uttered word, every shaken hand, every loving touch is a signal in the network, holding us together as one.
Now, imagine every person as a glowing point on the globe.
Imagine every interaction between those people as a lingering thread of light connecting them. Imagine the incomprehensible series of such threads – events and interactions – that created the device you read this on, the surface you sit on, the clothes on your back, you. How many lives have worked in concert to create everything within arm’s reach; to bring it you, here, now? Thousands? Millions?
Through your mere existence here and now you are connected to all of them, Dear Reader.
Some of those threads have gone unbroken through centuries, bringing you the music of Bach and the ideas of Aristotle. Others have been twisted and turned and spliced together over the years to create new things out of old ideas.
Take a moment now and visualize that web.
It spans not only the globe but the years: a living, moving, pulsating oneness connecting every living human being, now as well as then. And into the future. Ideas travel along the web, taking shape and multiplying, and bit by bit they are realized and created. A computer wouldn’t exist without the technicians, designers and manufacturers who create it; wouldn’t be created without the prospectors, miners, and refiners who gather and create the materials – and if not for the entrepreneurs, investors and businessmen who run the companies there would be no one to pay for it all. Then there’s the transporters, advertisers, sales people, and so on and so forth.
No single person in the web is more important than any other, really.
If one falls, another will take it’s place – or the chain will be broken – and every link on the chain is in turn supported by other people. Family, friends, co-workers, doctors, teachers, role models – they all connect to make us who we are and place us in our unique spot in the network.
We are Legion, for we are Many.
We all rest on the sum of all history and we all support the creation of the future. We all have power to connect, inspire, create, influence, instigate and change people around us – even if the effect is ever so small to begin with, it can end up determining the fate of the world. We can never know in advance what our tiny action today will lead to in the long run: a kind word, a helping hand, an inspiring art work, a comforting touch – that single action might start or re-start a chain of events that changes a life, and by extension the world. Every single thing we do or contribute to carries with it the weight of all that has led up to this moment. Every thing we do, every minute interaction with another, counts.
“Don’t be dismayed at good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again.” – Richard Bach
It’s remarkable how intimately our sense of smell is linked to our memories.
The other morning on the bus into town I sat engaged at reading, silently enjoying that pale golden shade of sun you only see in early spring or late autumn, when a young woman sat down next to me. As the scent of her perfume filled my nostrils, my mind filled with memories.
Sixteen years ago almost to the day, the sun coming through her windows had the exact same silvery-golden quality and my nose was filled with that exact same scent. It was the first night we had spent together and I had not yet fallen in love. As I lay there drowsily admiring her sleeping form, trying to decide if I should hold on to the moment or if I should wake her with a kiss and a hope of repeating the events of the night before, her eyes fluttered open and she smiled. We kissed. It was every bit as full of sparks as our first kiss had been, some seven hours earlier.
A few weeks later she told me that she loved me. I watched her sitting by the window in the light of the spring sun, eating muesli mashed together with banana. I felt proud and guilty at the same time, wondering if I could ever feel the same way about her. Later on, we kissed in public for the first time – a big step for a woman not overly fond of public displays of affection.
A few months more and we had slept together for the last time – though neither of us really knew it at the time. I was in love, but knew we had an expiration date. Ours was an entanglement of poetry, flowers, art and breaking rules. It was not meant to last. Having never really been together, we never really had to break up. There was no last goodbye – not even when she moved away, not even when we spoke a few years later, and all the memories I have of her are happy.
The first time I smelled her scent on another was on a crowded city street. All of a sudden my body was alight with passion and I was back in her sun-lit bed, her body pressed so close to mine it almost hurt. I’m back there every time it reaches me, her scent from the past.
I cannot for the life of me recall what scent it is and I’m afraid to ask. I fear the magic will be ruined if I know.
