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Tag Archives: out loud


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out loud. [d.r. thursday]

and nature studied jackson and drip-technique-painted the leaf on the trail. strategically placing small muddy potholes, it invited hikers and dogs and horses to step in. just as strategically, it placed the leaf nearby, deep brown in leftover autumn paint. soon, creamy splotches and drips and spatterings pollocked the leaf, ever-changed. i couldn’t help but notice as we walked. i felt some slight validation for the paint-spattered-paintings on our walls, the ones where i stood back and threw paint and threw paint and threw paint until i knew it was done.

i was tempted to pick up the leaf, to carry it home with us. i kind of wish i had. i wonder if anyone else noticed it, really noticed it as we did. and then i realize, that it is in our noticing – even just us – that it became a complete work and that it had a place in the world and that it wouldn’t be forgotten.

it was a good reminder for me, and i remind myself to tell d as well, to remind him. the size of the audience never matters, the number of viewers or listeners. even in one person’s experience of any work of art there is meaning.

“if you asked me what i came into this world to do, i will tell you i came to live out loud.” (émile zola)

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read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY


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still standing. [two artists tuesday]

“yeah, yeah, yeah!”

the most powerful moment i felt at the elton john concert sunday night came when he sang “i’m still standing”. still standing! yes!

analysis of the lyrics aside, “still standing” elicited the gigantic reverberation of 50-60,000 people singing along, all of whom, i suspect, have a “still standing” story. it’s the kind of song that generalizes – it’s about relationship, but isn’t everything in life – our relationships with our beloved, with others, with ourselves, with our life’s work, with this universe? just the sheer still-standingness of being alive made singing along worthy, no, more, a necessity. the stadium roared.

his first hit – in 1969/70 – “your song” brought tears to my eyes. in the encore set, i knew we wouldn’t see him live-in-concert again and the experience was rich, under a beautiful open-air night sky hearing my husband, daughter and her boyfriend sing along in various songs.

but that i’m-still-standing … i wrote it down in a note in my phone.

because sometimes life teeters and you are delivered boulders while you – a tiny rock of ash in a huge galaxy – attempt to precariously balance it all. and last night – well – i knew i was still standing.

and i suddenly knew that i would do all i could to make sure that my tiny star is dancing inside and out, that all the notes count, that it’s all silently and roaring out-loud. yeah, yeah, yeah.

elton john somehow reminded me that i’ve been standing all along.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY


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unleash the power of your crayon. [chicken marsala monday]

unleashthepower WITH EYES jpeg

on my piano in my studio is a teeny sign with a big message.  it reads, “if you asked me what i came into this world to do, i will tell you i came to live out loud.” (emile zola)   it’s a reminder – a reason for being.  true for each of us, it’s unleashing the metaphoric crayon of our creativity, our thoughts, our knowledge, our gifts, our voices.

there is an extraordinary amount of power in those crayons..the place in the middle that we open…the heart from where our concentric circles start rippling out…where the crayon meets the page, the song is composed, the painter paints, the activist writes.  “loud” (for the sheer sake of being loud) and “out loud” (simply having a voice) are two vastly different things.  and, if you are paying even the least bit of attention at all to world events, we are privy to both in our lives these days.

after living all this life so far, i hope now that the crayons i pick will help to ripple out things that are good, things that consider others, things that are not hurtful, things that are fair, things that are kind.  the power of a crayon unleashed that is “out loud” not “loud.”

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unleash the power of your crayon ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood