CHASING MATISSE: the right book at the right time

Occasionally, a book comes along that is "the right book at the right time". So it is with Chasing Matisse, A Year in France Living My Dream by James Morgan.

I had been eyeing this book in the library for a number of years, perhaps as many as six or eight, without picking it up. A couple of weeks ago I decided to give it a try. James Morgan, the author, and I are about the same age. He turned roughly sixty when he finished this book. I was almost sixty at the same time. Morgan gave up his livelihood, retired, and he and his wife Beth sold their home and moved to France. But there was a purpose to his journey: to follow somewhat in the footsteps of the painter Henri Matisse. Morgan had always wanted to be a painter (painting has always interested me though I did next to nothing about it, either, until I retired four years ago), and decided that he would start, with very little training, and do so in France while visiting the various places Matisse had lived. (I began taking drawing and painting classes at UNF  about two years ago, and am progressing slowly towards, I hope, respectability as a painter. Be not deceived, I have a long way to go.)

The book is full of anecdotes about Matisse and the places he lived and how they effected his style of painting. And Morgan's reflections about his adventure speak quite strongly to me and what I'm doing. Morgan's idea of retirement is to "Read, write, paint, think, travel: Finally my surface life and my subterranean life had meshed in perfect harmony." That's also my idea of retirement, especially, reading , writing, painting, and thinking. Travel will probably not be much in my retirement, certainly not traveling far from home. But the first four will keep me plenty busy.

This memoir is one that I could have lived, could have written, but...well, it's already been done. But it does have something indirectly to say about retirement and growing older. There is still a lot of adventure for us all, if we only take the chance.

Painting and Writing: Writing and Painting

I've not written any blog posts during the past thirty or so days, because I haven't had anything to say until now, and also I've been busy with writing and painting and reading and, especially, life responsibilities.

We all seek balance in our lives between work and play. Ideally, our play and work are one in the same, at least, a significant amount of the time. For me, writing and painting are a form of work and play. During the past thirty days, I've managed to revise two short stories. I've submitted them to a website where people read and critique each other's work. Critique Circle. Being that I'm not currently participating in local critique writing groups, this site is proving to be helpful, even inspiring. I've gotten some valuable feedback, and have tried to give others valuable feedback. Also, I've been doing a lot of painting. I've completed a few works in acrylic and I'm working in oils in my painting class. Both are engrossing endeavors.

Just like most writers, I have days when I don't feel like writing. I procrastinate, even though I have much to do and know what I've got to do. The wonderful thing, though, is that when I'm in that mode, I spend more time painting. So I'm still doing something I enjoy and progressing. Another factor, all though it's not a strong one, is that when I'm painting, I'm also thinking about my writing. So, I'm still, in a sense, writing.

It's a win-win situation, one that's making my idea  of work and play a reality.


 Critique Circle

My plans for 2014

I don't think I've ever made New Year's resolutions. I have always associated them with alcohol and faulty thinking, the main reason it seems that practically no one keeps their resolutions. I do believe in planning, though, but in all honesty, few if any of my plans have ever panned out. I'm traditionally a procrastinator by nature. Part of that is because, until recent years, I've always been a perfectionist. And, another point of honesty, perfectionism was always my enemy. It almost guaranteed that I would fail. So, I've learned that perfectionism is a curse I can do without. And, if my plans don't work out, oh well, that's the way it goes. But I still like to plan ahead and think about what I'd like to achieve in the future, knowing perfectly well it won't happen, at least, not in the way I planned.

This year, after basically taking the past year off from writing fiction, I plan on getting back to it. I hope to revise three crime short stories I wrote about a year ago. I'd also like to write a couple more (I have a couple of stories in mind). I also hope to revise one of my novels that is fairly well polished and has been critiqued (thank you, Tanya Reimer). To be honest, this is just a hope. I think it will require real dedication on my part. I don't know if I have it in me anymore.

I will continue with my art courses. I'm signed up for Fundamentals of Painting, which starts next week at UNF.

I will continue my self-analysis and research on Growing Old, Growing Young, and blogging about it. I have two or three posts already written that I'm allowing to simmer before publishing them. I do have in mind eventually using all my posts as the basis of a book. But that will be years away.

If I do manage to make headway with writing fiction again, I will also blog about writing again, about the craft, inspiration, hard work, and so on. Continue trying to be part of the writing community.

I love to read. I do so less and less as the years go by, but I hope to do a decent amount of reading this year.

Of course, there will be many obstacles. My wife plans on having knee replacement surgery in February. This will definitely interfere with all my plans. The one thing I'll probably have to try to keep up with during this time is my painting class. Illness is always a looming threat, especially during the winter. Raising my grandson, who is now four, is pretty much a full time job. I also have all the responsibilities of any homeowner that never go away.

I have plenty to be thankful for. I'm still in good health. My attitude is good. And I never stop. I just like doing things and being involved and hopefully I can give something good of myself to the world.

So, Happy New Year. Hope your resolutions and plans for 2014 are all fulfilled.

Christmas Story

I've added a new page to my blog. It's a short story I wrote some years ago. If you have time to read it, it's not long, and you can see my wry sense of humor.

Wonder: The Essence of Childhood

Wonder is a combination of thought and emotion. It's a form of illumination. It rises from the center of our being, our need to know. Children are filled with wonder. Everything is new. The world appears to the child to be well organized. Seeking the connections within this organization is a constant mental activity. The child has to put the world together, one experience, one discovery at a time. She has to discover reality. Reality is learned through experience. Wonder is born from the realization that there is more to reality than what we see. What is the reality behind reality? When we realize that what we see isn't reality, and that there's a reality behind the reality we know, wonder ensues.

What is the main source of wonder? It's mystery. It's the unknown and feeling connected with the unknown, feeling oneness with mystery.

Wonder, connecting with the mystery of the unknown,  is a central component of childhood, one that tends to disappear as the child grows older. Adults may still have flashes of it, through which it manifests as inspiration, particularly through works of art. Unfortunately, many adults experience less and less wonder and inspiration as they grow older. Becoming "set in their ways" they stop growing. Life becomes rather humdrum, perhaps boring, and filled with passive living. Watching T.V. becomes a way of life. A little travel can re-leave the boredom. But coming home is returning to boredom.

Continuing to experience wonder, to be thrilled by mystery, as we grow older is a form of staying young (or growing young). It can be a central component of the older adult's life if we do not become 'set in our ways'. Not becoming set in our ways should become an objective for us all. It requires openness, honesty, and even courage. But the reward for this is to continue to experience the joy of wonder.

God's greatest gift to mankind is joy, and the joy found in wonder is the greatest joy of all.

Happiness and Optimism

I won't hide it. I've been fairly happy this year. And I have also, at times, been optimistic. This has led me to wonder, which comes first, happiness or optimism. Is it being happy that leads you to being optimistic, or is it being optimistic that leads you to being happy? I've never been able to force myself to be happy, and I've never been able to force myself to be optimistic. Both seem to arise from a source separate from me (certainly separate from my ego).

Is being happy simply the absence of being unhappy, or is happiness some kind of force that pushes unhappiness out of the way, and vice versa? Is our mental state dependent on our thinking, or is our thinking dependent on our mental state? Can we think ourselves into a state of depression and think ourselves out of it? How powerful are our thoughts?

I'm of the opinion that we cannot think our way into and out of these states. If it were that simple, I think most of us would choose constant happiness. So, if thinking is not the source of either happiness or unhappiness, what is? Where do they come from? Are they part of some kind of teeter-totter within our psyches that tips to one side or the other? A pool of positive and negative emotions that bubble up and down, one or the other influencing us, depending on other factors within our lives at the time? Are they parts of our neurons firing and misfiring? Are they some kind of chemicals in our brains that organize and re-organize haphazardly or by some influence, such as thinking?

This is all so puzzling. I just know that when I feel unhappy, that's the way I feel, and it just goes away on its own, and when I'm happy, I'm happy until I feel unhappy. And I don't know why.

Lucid Dreaming: the heart and soul of writing.

Dreams (our indestructible desire to do, or be, something we find important), I think, emanate from our fantasies. The question then becomes, from whence come our fantasies? One of the definitions of fantasy is illusion, illusion being a mistaken idea, a misconception, a misleading visual image; hallucination. These definitions suggest a negative connotation. Yet, there seems to be nothing negative about my dreams. They seem positive and encourage me to act on them. So, perhaps, our dreams do not emanate from our fantasies.

If they do not originate in our fantasies, from where do they come? Maybe I should ask, which comes first, the vision or the dream? I have a vision of a scene and feel thrilled by it; it calls to me to save it. Don't let it die, because it has a life of its own. Does that vision morph into a dream and I act on it? I, therefore, start writing and fulfilling my dream. Is it the vision of the scene or the resulting dream that leads me to write?

Writing scenes is a pretty elemental part of writing fiction. In many ways, scenes are the heart and soul of fiction. They are the life of the story, the reason for everything. Everything the writer does is to make the scene come alive to the best of his ability. How does this relate to dreams? Visualizing scenes is a form of dreaming: lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is a positive form of fantasizing. For me, lucid dreaming is the thrill of writing. How does this form of dreaming relate to the big dream, the dream of being a writer? I think it's pretty obvious, the one flows from the other. The dream of being a writer is birthed in our lucid dreaming, in the satisfaction, should I say joy?, of lucid dreaming.

Is it a form of wish fulfillment? Another question for another time.