So, aside from looking for work, paying my first ever speeding ticket, and taking a night class two days a week, I've been splattering out some oil paintings in an old bedroom that I converted to a studio last month. Booyah--I even made an easel from an old stepladder with some plywood and a few wingnuts. Pretty lazy this summer, otherwise. Which is why, of course, I'm about to REVAMP MY DA PAGE!

Cha, 'cause, like, that's what you do when you're bored. 'Duh!


Actually, don't get too excited; all I'm doing is moving some old stuff into scraps and posting some photos of new work as they come in. I've got a huge backlog of stuff from this year I have to process, but I think you'll like it when you see it.

Ok, maybe a little excitement is in order, but don't hurt yourself. Seriously, folks. It's just the interwebs.

Cheers,
Cy

It's been a while since I posted any poetry up here for you, so since I wrote a bit, I thought I'd like to share it. Wrote that just couple hours or so ago to settle myself, since I was more or less just wandering aimlessly around my house after church. [wrote this, consequently, an hour or so after that and posted it to my xanga journal... I'm trying to keep in touch with people this summer and I'm still a little new to the whole blogging thing]. It's been quite muggy around here lately and I haven't been writing much; add that to everything else in my life plus a persistent streak of lonesomeness and you basically end up with a somewhat irritable and tired Cameron, who might (as he is now, having written something and played piano ) teeter over into a more relaxed, content, and still tired Cameron. Note: Cameron doesn't usually talk about himself in the third person. He think's it's odd, but he is a bit of a nutter. :crazy look:

Enough of that, then... right! Poem is at the bottom, still needs a title and probably some time to percolate (that means sitting around in my journal for weeks on end un-worked on, for you folks playing at home. ). While we're on the subject of writing, I just caught this sentence floating about my head and felt the urge to write it down. "Ellis was the sort of man who used his hands to say most everything, which meant watching him at a photo shoot with only one hand available for conversation was guaranteed entertainment." That's going to go in the novel I'm working on at some point, but I have no idea where it goes yet. Well, no... at the moment it goes in the old scrapbook, otherwise called my journal. And here, of course. Ellis is the main character's husband--she's a poet and a linguist, he's a photographer and I-don't-know-what-else-yet-because-I've-not-gotten-that-far. Interesting side note: when I discovered Topaz (her name), I had this funny idea that she would just be engaged. Oh-ho, how silly of me--you see, she rather disagreed when it came to the business of actually writing this book. Two sentences in, she informs me she is, in fact, newly wed. What? I haven't the foggiest idea how to write a married person, much less a married woman, and considering the recent turns in my own love-life I'm about as far from there as you can be. But the story just didn't go if she and Ellis hadn't already tied the knot before we meet them on the page, so there you have it. As one of my friends told me, though, Topaz is just as new to this whole marriage thing as I would be, and probably just as scared out of her mind. So I suppose we're going to be learning a lot from each other, and I'm hoping writing this will help me process some of these anxieties and dreams as Topaz takes me along for her journey through this whole marriage/relationship thing. Looks to be an exciting adventure well worth the attempt, anyway.

Still doesn't keep me from being scared witless every time I think about picking up that little black notebook to work on this story, though. I think that's been what's choking me up creatively--my friend Jamie talked to me once about the intense fear an artist has when approaching a blank canvas or an open page, and the description fits. Just need to push through the fear and turn that energy into something I can pour through myself into the work. Which is exactly what happens when I sit down and force myself to create. Funny how that goes.

Damn... writing all this out makes me really itchy to get started. Thanks for bearing with me, folks.
Anyway, I promised you poetry, and here it is. As mentioned, it still needs a title, and... I'm wondering if the second movement might not work as a separate poem, perhaps in conjunction with this one but not as closely tied as they are now. What do you think? (and, please, feel free to comment on anything you'd like about anything you'd like, not just the poem--I'm all ears and I love talking to people!)



I. Turned Inward.

I wander around my living spaces
steadily pacing, pacing, pac--
I leave everything unfinished, you know;
soon I am sitting at the piano,
keys sticking to my fingers in the heat,
a wandering melody
but then I am up again
tossing around my living spaces
restless, pacing, pacing, p
I leave everything
I sit at the kitchen table
arching my back 'til the vertebrae ache,
or I sleep, or half-sleep, or pretend to sleep
you know, dreamless sleep, hollow sleep, sleep on the inside
hungry sleep that eats up, eroding your mind
dimming the nerve fiber connections from your soul to everything else
but who cares? I'm all humidity anyway
as dull and as vaporous as the thick doldrum air.
And really, how beautiful is the light coming through
if I don't have words to describe it?
If I can't get it right, dare I try?
Yes, a deep sleep, dreamless sleep, a false sleep,
a good, somnambulant dullness.
Surprised at the kitchen table,
I struck the little dog for barking--a mistake and grave regret.
I'm the wasp, I realize as I sting the page
with a venomous green ink; the wasp that crawled in the bathroom window
sluggish, yellow, and irritable, and finally insignificant.
I didn't even swat the thing.

To hell with this, I think. I'd rather be awake.
I take a drink of clear water
to wash the curdled taste of milk from between my gritted teeth.

II. Turned outward.

You know, as I lay here on the carpet looking up,
the evening light coming in
at soft, rakish angles
reflected by the hardwood floor
in wide open swaths on the ceiling
and in the arches of the great doors,
colored a warm yellow by the atmosphere
then by the drawn blinds,
is really quite lovely, after all.

(music again!)

Dear friends,

This summer is going well.

Scratch that. This summer is saving my rear.

Sure, there are moments of feeling intellectually, socially, spiritually and emotionally outstripped by my peers, but then again, there are those long, lovely moments with wonderful people like Laura, and Eddy, and Seth and Leslie before they left; those more than compensate. I'm trying to sort my life out after the end of this spring semester, which... is happening a lot more intuitively than I thought it would, all things considered. There are my friends helping me, for one thing, just by being there and... and occasionally reminding me of who I really am. The beautiful and mysterious part of it is, I think not one of them knows they have, at least not directly. It happens in all sorts of small ways; like walking through Letchworth Park, or a passing "I liked hanging out today, I'm glad you were here," or any myriad of silly little things. No, they're not silly... probably lots of people would call them silly, though. Small things.

There's also the church I'm attending. We're a small group during the summer after most of us students leave, but a very hospitable one. I've told almost no one there about what's happening in my life right now, but being around them is still powerfully encouraging somehow. Not always, in fact almost never, in one of those ecstatically happy, rapturously uplifting sorts of ways; something a bit more subtle and almost unnoticeable, I think. Uplifting, yes, but the way a friend is uplifting when you're breaking down in chapel and he or she puts a hand on your shoulder or an arm around you. A gentle reminder that there are people and there is a Love to catch you and carry you if you need it.

That reminds me of something I heard at the writing festival in Grand Rapids I went to; Scott Cairns was talking about some of the monastic traditions, and about people carrying each other in prayer. The idea is that there's a community which is always praying and caring for people, even when you can't. That's something of a tangent, but what I suppose I'm getting at is this: God is there, somehow, and so are people who love you. They might not even be a part of the body of believers as such... but still there to turn to. Anyway, this church is one of those places where the people remind me that I can hope.

I'm on the worship planning committee there, now... how did that happen? I've never done anything like this in my life. Ever. And why now, of all times, when I'm trying to figure out who I am again? It's certainly nothing I feel I'm a all capable of... and I think that's exactly why this opportunity arose, and secretly, I know it's part of why I decided to take it. I've never done this before; every time I go to a meeting (okay, all two of them so far), the few seconds just beforehand I remember all the things I haven't done, and precisely how little time I think I've spent with God (which is, come to think of it, a strange thing to say), and more or less exactly how unprepared I am and how much I am going to completely fall flat on my face and let the people I care about down. But, of course, that's how I talk myself out of doing anything. And then, just as I'm sitting down, I remind myself that, because I'm so out of my league, I have no choice but to be completely reliant on God, and quietly... quietly, my mind stops racing inwards on itself. It's a strange journey, to be on this interior side of a community, strange and wonderful. It's oddly organic; I feel like I'm contributing to something that has a life of its own, and in a way, that's precisely true.

Small things, you see.

There are long walks in the afternoons, sometimes, when I'm feeling aimless. There's music, old music on the radio, new music on the radio, music on my CD player, music in friends' houses, in coworkers' stereos. Coworkers--no, they're friends, too.

I'm working on the custodial crew at my college again this summer. Most people seem to complain about their summer jobs, but I'm glad to have this one. We've been working in the art building for close to two weeks now, which I absolutely love; for the past two weeks, there's nowhere I'd rather be. I've recently figured out (or put words to the idea) that I am discovering I'm a tactile person. Give me something I can work my hands into, run my fingers over, watch taking shape or changing in front of me... even music for me is an almost tangible thing. The last three work days I've been responsible for cleaning the clay mixing room in the ceramics studio, basically by myself. Set loose on the clay spatter with a wooden tool and some rags, to figure out how to clean it with my own two hands--I love working with my hands. First of all, especially with this, I get an incredible feeling of accomplishment when I'm done. Secondly, and this is another reason I love custodial, the people are great to be around. A lot of them are old friends from high school or people I know from college, but meeting new people at work is half the fun. And when there aren't people around, I have time to think. Those of you that know me know this could be either very good or very bad--this summer, I'm finding out that it's possible to be less brooding when I'm by myself, and I think it has something to do with the art.

Oh, and then there's the art.

My college offers something called mayterm, which is a semester's worth of one or two classes packed into roughly a month. Last year I took watercolor, and it was absolutely wonderful; this year, I took an Advanced Digital Imaging class that was composed of 6 other people who had taken the same Digital Imaging class I had, though not all at the same time. My professor had never offered this class before, so the class was set us for us to push our own boundaries, and since all of us were there to push our skills where we weren't sure they could go... man, did it ever work! This year, particularly this spring, I'd taken something of a hiatus from art. Very little in the way of drawing or coloring, up until the end of the spring when I started throwing clay with a couple good friends of mine Sunday nights in the art building. That surprised me, by the way, to discover that I could pick up something like ceramics as quickly as I did. (Remember what I said about discovering I was a visual-tactile sort of guy? That's about when I started putting 2 and 2 together.)

Anyway, this Advanced class thrust me back into my original medium in very short order--and up to my neck. The most important thing I learned this may was simple reinforcement of the idea that, yes, you really can sit down and make something. Oh yes, you still can. This year, while learning a lot about my gifts, where they come from, how to hone them and release them, I'd still neglected them almost utterly. Almost as soon as I started doing this again, though, I stopped thinking about how aimless or incapable I felt--I simply existed. I simply trusted. I simply... rejoiced?

Joy? :eyebrow raise: What heresy is this?

It's my intention now to keep pushing myself to work on something every week, no matter how small, just to keep myself in touch with that part of me. The summer is going to be much longer than I realize as I write this, and I know I won't always sound so optimistic when you talk to me. But the truth is... somehow, despite every reason I could come up with why this might not be, I am still... surrounded with evidence of love. Why am I surrounded by such good people, everywhere I turn? Why do I have these talents which I am too ready to deny?

I simply don't know.
What I do know is, however purposeless I may feel, however outclassed or out of my league, I know I have a purpose. Whatever that may be. At the moment, I know I also have gifts beyond what I can understand. And I purpose to recognize them.
God help me.

Yeah.... this summer? It's slapping my face and saving my freaking tail.

vaya con Dios, mis amigos.

So
I just hooked up the stereo system I bought for college, after a year of disuse, and Muse but particularly the Advent Children soundtrack sounds impeccable on it still.
I mean, there's nothing quite like a legato choral piece with just a few cluster chords and the right amount of bass; it becomes something tangible, like an audile texture... or a piano piece that makes you feel the keys sliding under your fingers.

I guess we all know what my favored synesthesia is, now

yep, that's about it.


Oh, and, hello, this is me. I'm back.

Long time no see…

So, internet, it’s been a while. It’s been almost two months since I got back from my sojourn in London, and while a great deal has changed, so much of it is the same. Yeah, okay, that’s cliché—but cliché doesn’t always mean untrue.
What’s different? How I look at things, probably. I mean, tv is basically the same, just worse… my friends are growing up, growing together and growing apart. One of my best friends is getting married in a year; another is finishing up a degree in computer graphics from Full Sail—who knows where they’re going to end up afterward? In the past year I’ve grown up, too, a little bit. I’m figuring out who I am, what my talents are (that I have talents, really…, mostly thanks to my girlfriend—do you have any idea how wonderful it feels when someone who cares about you is always there to remind you that who you are, your God-given identity is…. good? Everybody needs that, I’m convinced of it. And everybody could have it, if they looked in the right places—but we condition ourselves and are conditioned by our environment to give up looking long before we really have a chance to find it.

The London program took me through the history of Western Civilization, the art and philosophy that drove us Westerners to where we are, and what I saw as I got ready to come home was a world disconnected from itself. People, like it or not, need other people—to live with, to grow with, to love and be loved in return—not in a sappy, hypocritical romance-novel kind of way, but real love, honest love: the dangerous kind of love, a kind of radical trusting relationship (between lovers, between parents and children, between the best of friends—Hell, even people who live on the same street, sometimes), the kind that changed the world once and with gentle, insistent nudges can change it again, slowly. Yeah, I’m an idealist, there’s no saving me from that. And yeah, I want to change the world, I want to be a part of the Great Conversation, I want to throw these ideas, this world I live in out there for dialogue, to get other people to think—not necessarily like me, but just to consider the possibility that people are designed to be together, not to use each other like just another resource. I want community to come back, not so that “everyone can be equally special” or “some people can bring order to the rest of us;” I want community so we can all actually have some contact with something real, something vibrant and alive instead of cold steel and glass. I want ideas to flow together and be talked about—some embraced, some discarded, some modified and blended with others, all considered, all discussed. I want the West to get it’s suicidal act together and start trying to live again.

If we’re going to live again as a people, then as a person we all have to start thinking about being alive.

So here’s a challenge for you, you artists, you writers, you everyday joes and josephines, if you don’t mind the possibility of talking about philosophy, about art, about religion:

How do we live, what do we live for? What do you say with your art, how do you use your gifts? What is Truth, and where are we going? What, in other words, is your worldview? And how are you going to live, really LIVE as though you were alive?

Good night, internet friends—fellow artists, brethren philosophers, cultural movers and shakers-to-be. I love you all, not all the time and not as much as I should, but at some level I love you--yes, I mean that, and no, I’m not Barney and God knows I’m no Jesus. Still, I love you. Love as it manifests itself in this, our world, is a connection, a trust and a bond—not always felt, but always hoped for and to some degree always known, recognized, and searched for. As human beings you were intended to love and be loved. Start living it.

As always, I’ll see y’all on the flipside.
--Cy