Things get lost sometimes.

Our way, our minds, our possessions. Stuff just gets put to one side and then before you know it, poof, gone. Motivation, inspiration, dedication... It's hard to hang onto things in the face of reality. The constant grinding down of everyday life takes a toll. And if you add in depression to the mix, well. There you have it. It's a recipe for forgetfulness.

As often as things get lost, they get found, too.

Get lost in the moment and find yourself. Get a chromebook and rediscover your blogger blogs. Loose your temper and find some freedom. Life itself is cyclical, so it makes sense that we would be cyclical too. We move in circles, coming in and out of habits and patterns. Like the sea, we ebb and surge.

Promises and commitments are hard to keep.

Which is why I try not to make them. I don't like to promise things because I believe in the transience of life. And commitments are tricky, because I can't guarantee who I'll be in a year, or a week, or tomorrow. So I'm not going to commit to blogging every day, or ever week, or even every year. I'm just going to say that right now I want to write my thoughts down somewhere. And this is as good of a place as any.

A delicious dinner

Last week I made myself a delicious dinner. Roasted eggplant, baked salmon and a huge side salad. It was absolutely wonderful and precisely what I needed to have.

I cut an eggplant in half and rubbed it with olive oil; a dash of salt and pepper and I roasted it for 40 minutes in the bottom of the NuWave oven. About 25 minutes in I used the four inch rack, lined with foil for the salmon. I sliced some onion, red pepper and lemon, tossed in a little oil and salt. The veggies got piled on top of a frozen salmon filet and roasted.

I flipped the filet halfway through it's cooking time to make sure it cooked thoroughly. When it was all done, I plated it up beside a humongous salad. Not in the picture are a pair of Kings Hawaiian rolls.

I absolutely enjoyed my dinner that night, and definitely plan to do it all again!

Lotus; wash over line.

I want to talk about art and about being who you are and about bullies. Honest, they really do all intersect.

When I was little, I drew pictures. And people ooh'd and aah'd and told me they were good, but I saw all the flaws in them, the places they just weren't quite right. So I practiced and I worked at it and I continued to see the flaws and messed up bits. I saw how the circle wasn't really round and how that didn't really look like that and how utterly horribly rotten I really was at art.

I looked at Degas and at Leonardo, at Rembrandt and Picasso, and I knew, just knew I'd never be that good. 

I took a two day oil painting seminar in high school. They said I was really good. I painted a few pictures, and again, I saw the flaws. 

In high school, I didn't take art classes, because I wasn't good enough for that. I didn't show anyone my pictures or tell anyone I could draw because it wasn't enough, it wasn't good enough, I wasn't big enough or shiny enough or cool enough to be an artist. Artists are people who wear cool clothes they drew on and they smoke cigarettes and carry pencils and sketch pads everywhere and they don't care what everyone around them thinks.

I cared. Oh, I cared. I cared that they called me Caspar because I was pale. I cared that they told me I stank, and that I was ugly; when they said I couldn't I believed them, and when they told me I should die I tried.

My mom told me I laughed too loud; my aunt told me to question everything because it was important to make up my own mind about things. I became uncertain. I knew the words the kids used about me were wrong, but what if they had a grain of truth in them? I had to question both the rightness and the wrongness of what they said about me.

I saw the flaws in myself, pointed out by my "peers." I wanted to be quirky and cool, suave and sexy and awesome, but I could see the places where I wasn't quite round enough, or sleek enough, the places where the lacquer had worn through and the spots where the underpainting was the wrong tone.

I didn't even consider a University with a fine arts program. Hard science all the way.

Every time I moved, my art supplies came with me, in boxes labeled 'crafts.' When I told people I could draw, it was in a downplayed, simplified version of 'drawing.' I can make circles and three dimensional boxes. 

In my heart of hearts, I was an artist. I painted the world in new ways, showing people what is really there, and opened up eyes and minds and hearts to emotional experiences... I captured the world and made it mine through paper and pigment; I created things that were brand new, never-before-seen marvels of the imagination. 

And I hid it all away, because it was too flawed. 

Each time I told someone what I did, who I was, it hurt more. More and more to not say 'Artist.' 'Creator of beauty.' 'Person who tames the world and shows it to you, new.' Part of me screamed through the rest of me to make art again. 

I'd do it, for a while, until life got in the way (that's what I told myself.) I'd do it until I was overwhelmed by the flaws in myself and had to put it away again. 

Now, I changed my life to have more room for art. This thing that has been at the center of my soul for as long as I can remember must be at the center of my life, too. Flawed, broken, not as good as Degas or Michaelangelo and wonderful. 

I am an artist. I see the world and interpret it through pigment, paper, wire, glue and clay; I present it to you, my audience. This art is me, do you see it? React to this thing that I made so I know that I exist. Show me the impact I have had so that I may know I live. 

Art is life, I am art. I show it to you as I show you my own beating heart. See its flaws? Do you love them, too? The places where I can see that this time I made it better than the last, and the places I have still to work on... aren't they lovely? 

I no longer define myself in the negative. "I'm not Christian, not straight, not monogamous, not normal, not boring, not not not not..." No. I am an artist. I am queer. I am Zen. I am ART. 

Tho I will still question, quest after greater skill and technique, I will no longer listen to the voices from my youth, the ugly evil ones that tell me lies about myself. I know who I am now and the words of others cannot change that.

I am an artist. I will make the world and show it to you; I will look at the world you have made. As you see me, I see you. We exist, together. Let's make art and prove it.