Koan
They teach me all the time.
This one keeps intimating, how long can you stay inside not knowing.
It turns me back to the first time I wanted to cut apart a painting. To slash it, I remember saying. She asked me to wait and promise I wouldn’t before we had time to talk.
"What is it teaching you?"
Patience.
Perseverance when I can’t see farther than where I’m working and courage to become more intimate with the unknown.
About light and dark.
The inherent motivator. The memoir.
The juxtaposition between not making it too precious too early and trust.
For that alone, it was worth it.
I added another medium that first time, applying it like make up, sculpting. The fine point when the eyes came alive in their downward gaze, tiny lines of painted lashes brushed on like hairs. It lives now with Roshi after moving to Florence. Before San Francisco and an extraneous eighteen months in a metropolis near Jeddah. Before meeting the music that’s teaching me.
I give a silent offering of my eyes, daily. And when there is time and energy, I paint. Or poke around at it. Or wash it. It’s still not finished. Over a month ago I wrote…almost there. Two weeks ago, closer. But honestly now, in this moment, I have no idea.
How. Or when.
The only thing I can come to is, it’s infinitely better not to grasp.
That's a different kind of discourse.
To chew.
And wonder.
