Note: I’m taking a break from the Gentle Rewilding series first to go to the ocean and then, as it turns out to draw. If you’d like to catch up on the Gentle Rewilding series – an exploration of ways to reconnect to our human design – you can find them below. I’ll resume with Gentle Rewilding of Hips on Oct 5...unless I don’t.
* Find Part 1 – Gentle Rewilding & Feet here.
* Find Part 2 – Gentle Rewilding: Hands here.
* Find Part 3 – Gentle Rewilding: Spine here.
* Find Part 4 – Gentle Rewilding: Shoulders here.
Last week, we went to the ocean. We packed our little camper, drove to South Carolina and for a week hung out on the edge of the Eastern Seaboard.
I’ve been thinking a lot about space and time – specifically MY space and MY time. What do I want to be doing? How do I want to be spending my days? Am I being carried by habit or passion or both? What does it mean to use my time well? What does it mean to live my life well?
In such a swirl of questions, having a week to watch the waves and the shore birds and *eek* the alligators, was deeply welcome.
Liza Donnelly (thanks for the reminder, Kate Bennis) is a beloved and long-time New Yorker cartoonist and I’ve been following her for the past couple of months. Watching her draw and talk about the art and craft of cartooning reawakened my love of doodling and drawing. Since I was a kid reading Peanuts and then a ‘tween scouring the New Yorker for the cartoons (even when I only got about 40% of them), I’ve wanted to make art that delights.
A few years ago, I dove into this dream by making two books – Buddha Cat and Octobusy – and other art that blends images, color and words. But since the pandemic and becoming a solopreneur, my art-making has taken a back seat. The way back seat. I get ideas and start something but then the busyness of days pushes it back into the drawer.
On our first day on our trip to the ocean, driving through North Carolina, we passed a flea market and Frank offhandedly mused, “Why do they call it a flea market?” (Note: There is a general agreement that the term 'Flea Market' is a literal translation of the French marché aux puces, an outdoor bazaar in Paris, France, named after those pesky little parasites of the order Siphonaptera (or "wingless bloodsucker") that infested the upholstery of old furniture brought out for sale. Source: Wikipedia)
When we got to the campground, I found a scrap of paper and a kinda shitty pen and drew this:
It was silly. And yet it had me looking at everything differently. I was looking for funny and delightful things to draw.
Plovers. Plovers are funny. Plovers are little shore birds that oddly seem averse to getting their feet wet. They run to the edge of the waves, niggle some sort of food item out of the sand and then scurry their little feet away from the waves again. It’s hilarious and I could watch them all day.
Also hilarious: little dogs at the beach. They too seem disinclined to get their feet wet and also whir their little legs to outmaneuver the water. So I drew this:
Pelicans delight me no end. What with their gangly bodies, unruly beak-sacks and spectacular dives for their dinner, I’m constantly pointing and ridiculously saying, “Oooh! Pelicans!” As a kid someone told me that after a lifetime of plunging into the sea head first, Brown Pelicans will eventually go blind. Turns out that’s a myth. Which, yay for that, but even so, this is what I drew:
Until this week, I’d never seen an alligator in its natural environment. At Huntington Beach State Park, it’s a regular occurrence. I’m a total scaredy pants when it comes to most reptiles (not turtles, I love turtles) and big, fast-moving ones with 80 teeth are no exception. I squealed and squeaked every time one came into view. So when I saw the big sign at the entrance to the park that read “FEEDING ALLIGATORS PROHIBITED BY LAW,” it completely cracked me up. So I drew this:
Now that we’re home, I’m playing with giving myself time to draw what delights and amuses me. We went for a hike and Frank (who was walking ahead of me) got tangled in about eleventy billion spider webs. I discovered that there are spiders every-freaking-where in the fall because it’s dating time:
Now that we’re home, we’re back to doing chores like scooping the cat box and vacuuming. Frank loves the Roomba to supplement his excellent housekeeping skills but Phoenix (the aforementioned Buddha Cat) thinks we have adopted the dumbest pet ever.
Phoenix is absolutely not afraid of the Roomba but I got delighted by the idea of having a cat on my head, so…
All this to say (or to draw): turn toward delight. If the one thing I keep not doing is something that lends effervescence to my days, it’s worth rethinking the whole thing. Turn toward delight, friends. It’s what connects us to ourselves, each other and being human.