Month: April 2019

# 41 The Memory of Color

~ janedougall ~ Leave a comment

The Memory of Color.

Skybluepink. That’s a color my Dad taught me when I was a little girl. You know this color too, just probably not by this name. Skybluepink fills late afternoon skies or, sometimes like this morning, it shows up at sunrise. When those particular colors fill the sky I hear “skybluepink ” in my mind and I smile in immediate response, the very non-nostalgic me remembering my Dad. Every time.

I’m thinking that you, too, have color memories, secret joys attached to cherished moments. I can picture in my mind’s eye, my first awareness of pink light at sunset bathing a usually very green Vermont hillside with intense rose-colored light which felt like fairies were remaking the world. And surely you have stood on dew-wet morning grass as the sun rose after a night rainfall, the rays of yellow light streaming, outlining each leaf with golden edges, the moment so beautiful nothing else need be asked of the coming day which had already made it to spectacular.

Some days color is the  highlight, and some days the lack of color is what is most remarkable For some of us, the awareness of color is reward enough for simply being.

# 40 Windshield

~ janedougall ~ 2 Comments

Windshield.

When I shut off the wipers the windshield began beading heavily, forming a view of the parking lot as if through a lovely curtain. The heavy rain was from a March coastal nor’easter. I had turned the radio to the classical station, while traveling a short distance through city streets. I was amazed to hear familiar notes, Vivaldi, lulling me into the loveliness I thought was one of the Four Seasons, Spring, I thought as the equinox was two days before.

I sat in the parking lot watching the muted outlines of people walking in and out of the store in time with the music they could not hear. The cars moved about in similar rhythms astonishingly in synch with the strings of the orchestra. Time ceased. There was only the music and the blend of perfect rhythmic movement, a spectacular sense of both being outside of time or place, so perfect and perfectly simple, moments of reverence from within a stormy, ordinary day.

#39 Just Life: Frameworks

~ janedougall ~ 2 Comments

Just Life: Frameworks.

After watching yet another program from the British Telly,* I find myself thinking about the way we hide our own truths from ourselves. I think this is possible because we build a framework to contain this or that story and we repeat this story, or versions of it, to ourselves and to others. The story holds because we’ve formed a structure around it, but what would happen to the facts or essence of that story if we could loosen its framework letting it ooze out?

Frameworks require a lot of maintenance. Wooden or metal, there is much replacement, paint, fasteners and the like, involved in keeping the structure sound. This has to be true of our stories, our emotional frameworks or self constructed histories, as well. How do we maintain our stories? Don’t they require repetition, if not to others then to ourselves?

I am thinking of the stories I tell new friends when I am attempting to build a context, an explanation of who I am and of how I got here, now, at this point in my life. I tell these stories out of a belief they are true. I probably use the same phrases I’ve used telling others over time, but aren’t each of these stories constructions? Aren’t these recitations of my past history, these pieces I think of as life segments, just boxed information I’ve set on my internal history shelf and am now pulling out for another round of show and tell? If I pulled the essence away from it’s box what would it look like? How would it sound?

Perhaps we are drawn to water because of its form or, rather, it’s lack of form. Many of us can watch water as waves and tides for hours, how it flows or breaks differently with each surge. It is both repetitive yet new at every moment. What if we freed our stories from their containers? Would they flow like water, changing shape and color, providing different ways of seeing what we had thought of as solid? Would we try to put the essence of our stories into new containers or could we work with their essence to discover new ways of seeing what we thought of as solid? Would loosening the frameworks alter our perceptions of self? Would we no longer have an idea of who we are if we disassembled the frameworks holding our stories?

I think I will return to watching the water and see if I can release a story or two into fluid form. Maybe I’ll keep it to myself or maybe I’ll chance telling it as a flow rather than a construction.

 

*Acorn TV: The Boy With the Topknot.

#38 Decisions

~ janedougall ~ Leave a comment

Decisions.

Recently I had the simultaneous experience of needing to choose whether to go or stay in two separate situations. In the case where I stayed, I learned about being part of a collective energy, a lovely thrumming / humming / buzz to which I got to contribute. It was both me and not me at the same time. I suspect that if I had ever played in a band or sung in a chorus this lovely collective feeling would have been familiar and I am certain there are many other ways to be a part of such energy.

In the other situation, I recognized that my unintentionally disruptive energy needed to be withdrawn. I needed to go.

What remains curious to me is how we come into awareness of when to stay and when to go. Discomfort with the unknown may be an aspect of each, yet discomfort may not always be a  signal for departure. Discomfort might signal new ground offering opportunity for learning or growth but, sometimes, discomfort is the first signal telling us something is amiss.

I have been posing this question—how to decide when to stay or when to go—to others. One wise woman suggested either choice will lead to continued learning, that there are no bad choices but rather just choices that will get us where we need to be. It is a comforting thought.

Have you found your way to such understanding? I’m working on it.