“I just wish I was good enough to be who everybody wants me to be.” An Anonymous Friend ***** Paul Cezanne was famously endlessly dissatisfied with his art, legend having it in fits of pique he would hurl his unfinished canvases out his window. And despite extraordinary accomplishment positioning him to be declared the father […]
Resisting trite cliché in contemplating the thing that matters most: love.
Upon watching this video, I wrote to someone I love: “This is a smart video, a caring video, not a vindictive one. This is about taking a very bad thing and finding a way to find good – seek good. “In some modest way, it’s also a confession, and mirror of our own culpability – […]
It’s important to pay attention: the light, what’s in the frame, the cropping. How it all wants to go, that’s all that really matters. Adhering to what must be. ***** When the world no longer makes sense, how do you make sense of it? (Elisif died. What sense is there in that?) Here is what […]
In the most recent season of HBO’s comedy Veep, there is a scene in which a Vice-Presidential candidate, reflecting on the nature of mental illness, expresses sympathy for the family of a mass killer during a press conference. His handlers backstage are apoplectic: in opening this vein of compassion he is blowing the election. Sure […]
Reflections on acceptance and forgiveness in the face of our human limitations.
I dreamed I was back in time, nestling my chin into her Elisif hair, all the while knowing she was gone. ***** “The object of love is not the subject of love.” (This opaque phrase came like a mantra, pulling me back from the brink.) My ache had become for one person, unattainable. This singular […]
An ode to embracing art as a way to find healing.
I had 80 people in a room for 2 hours, learning about the New Day Campaign. It’s an ambitious thing: 7 different exhibition themes in 12 different spaces is just the beginning: collecting, soliciting, and generating multiple works of art, each with a personal story related to behavioral health behind it; teams putting together not […]
In the past year, I have become obsessively attracted to people who are hurting. Partly, it’s a mirror: my weight is less with those who too carry loads. But what really draws me: those who suffer the most often love the most. And forgive. ***** I am not all I seem — I know what […]