amazing | reverse threading

May 22, 2024
by kerrisherwood11 2 Comments

like a dream. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

it had been a long while.

i hadn’t been on an airplane for well over a year. i used to fly all the time, but all-the-time has changed and it’s relatively rare these days to find myself zooming through the clouds. that rarity has given me a different perspective and a different appreciation of the whole flying-thing.

we flew to the mountains. the flight-sky was mostly clear – brilliant blue with huge puffy clouds below us. we had the row to ourselves; the flight was not full. we were anticipatory of what was to come once we got there. we were excited to be heading west. i was filled with ready-tears that always overcome me at the sight of the first range i see. in the wee hours of the morning – wisconsin. in the still-early-hours of the morning – colorado. it is still amazing to me.

the way home was equally as stunning. the flight was full. it was evening in colorado. we got back to wisconsin late and drove home – this time, the interstate – going 75 mph to our driveway, having spent an odd time on the airplane – witnessing people who were somewhat rude to others, people hacking, people smushed in with other people. nevertheless, all of a sudden, we were no longer in the mountains and we were in milwaukee – and it is still amazing.

as dedicated roadtrippers, it is almost an out-of-body thing to fly somewhere. there is no time to really process – no time to really look at – study – what we are passing through, no time to properly feel moving from one place to another. but it’s easy and quick and absorbs all the road miles for littlebabyscion with its 274,000 mile odometer.

in a day or so, we will be able to take a little time and sort through it all…everything that happened while we were in those high mountains, everything we felt and saw and celebrated.

we’ll sit back in our adirondack chairs watching the hummingbirds and the chippies, watching the peonies grow and the grasses sway in the breeze, watching breck’s leaves quake and dogga run in circles – lingering – and we’ll be thankful for this trip that feels a little like a dream now.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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July 19, 2022
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

one shadow. [two artists tuesday]

in the perfect moment of sun, the perfect angle of ray, the perfect covering of cloud, the perfect surface of shadow, two became one.

i took a second look before i pointed it out to him. i wanted to be sure i didn’t miss the bird, maybe tucked into the shadow of fern. it wasn’t there. it had immersed itself into the shadow of the other.

i knew, upon gazing at this, i would not likely witness this again. it was that kind of moment.

when david proposed on knee at gate F8 at o’hare airport, he presented – from inside a tiny box inside a tiny satin bag – two silver rings, almost identical, like the almost-identical-wrought-iron-green-eyed birds. after a magically vehement and funny proposal, he explained he saw us as two individuals, coming together, yet, with great love and respect, remaining individual, bringing to each other all in each our circles. one ring was etched and one was smooth.

we spend pretty much 24/7 with each other. it’s been that way since the beginning. he has supported me in any work i am doing and, likewise, i have supported him. with rare exception, we have traveled, always, together. we chore together and explore together. we cook meals and scheme happy hours and pop-up dinners together. we love on the dog and pine for our babycat together. we cry listening to lowen and navarro’s last concert together and laugh at the same lines over-and-over while watching my big fat greek wedding together. we walk and hike and exercise and spat together. we lift each other up. we grow older together. david’s office is upstairs so during work hours he is merely a flight of steps away. we, as artists, create together, writing every morning, daydreaming aloud about studios on the side of a mountain. saturday we spent hours – with new ridiculously-liberating paint pens – painting rocks together and walking in the dusky edges of day along the lake.

both rings are almost all smooth now. i imagine one of these days they will be the same.

and, though there will always be two – two silver rings, two iron birds – the sun will shine down on us, day after day, shadows of two green-eyed artists on the sidewalk, in the leaves on the trail, on the sand of the shore, on our new fence.

and then, one day, maybe – with all perfects (and imperfects) aligned – that sun may cast a miraculous shadow of one. we might miss it, but we already know it’s there. mingling with the ferns.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

May 3, 2022
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

how unprecedented you are. [two artists tuesday]

we don’t really know. we rise each day, bold coffee at our lips, with curiosity. truly, what the day will bring is a mystery. the best-laid plans, well, they are only that – plans. things change and the kaleidoscope swirls around us in mere moments.

“this being human is a guest house. each morning a new arrival…” (rumi – the guest house)

and we rise again the next day…

…the day lilies and the grass blades are rising as well. through the upheaval of their dirt, the excavation of their home, the burying of their fallowed stems, the netting and straw post-waterline-replacement, they are rising anyway.

my thoughts of pulling everything up and starting fresh in the front yard came to a screeching halt when i saw them. if they are resilient enough to bright-green their way into this upheaved spring, i think i would be somewhat dishonoring to remove them. in doing so, i would miss their profound message of fortitude, of courageous no-matter-what-ishness, of their coy laughter reaching for the sun.

“you are so busy being you that you have no idea how utterly unprecedented you are.” (john green – the fault in our stars)

we miss it. in the middle of our don’t-really-know days, we miss seeing the absolute stalwart root in clay we each bring. we miss the credit of finagling another chaotic day. we miss our embrace of the new arrival of mystery. we miss our own unprecedentedness.

yet there it is. rising through the netting and the straw and the mud and the excavated rocks and cement.

“on the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you…”

(john o’donohue – beaanacht)

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

August 20, 2018
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

not enough crayons. [chicken marsala monday]

as i am writing this, The Girl just texted to say she was driving off the pass and that she and lumi-dog had finished their hike in the back-country. earlier she had texted (as is safe practice for all back-country activity) to let someone know both that she was going to be out of cell service, off the grid, in the high mountains on a hike and where she intended her hike to take her. she is a conscientious hiker and boarder and i can’t tell you how much i appreciate that. and so, early early this morning, i looked up the hike she was taking.

the #1 hike in the san juans (according to my trail app) it was taking her on a giant elevation gain and to a stunning lake, the color of which i couldn’t describe by the picture, and evidently was un-grasp-able even by the people reviewing the hike. this was a place incapable of being captured by even a crayola 64-box.

that is what i love about our world. countless places we couldn’t begin to capture with crayons. no matter how many we could get our hands on.

the places that take our breath away. the places that give us breath.