A delirious state

I keep running a fever above 102℉ (39℃) since yesterday--in fact, I am certain I have a fever right now since I feel extremely cold but my skin is burning to the touch. Perfect timing if you ask me with all of the final papers and studying I have to do. I even missed the UCD General Strike today...or maybe I participated considering I have only moved from my bed to the couch and from the couch back to my bed. No school for me, just hallucinations. The day has been a haze, alternating between reality and a feverish dream like state.
In my feverish delirium this morning, I thought I was back here:

I even called out to (insert name here). It's my biggest held secret and it is better this way because this way it is only mine. The truth is, it's not wanderlust, it is love that takes me back to feverish August nights. They were so painfully short in memory and right now I feel a yearning...I want to go back. Or maybe I am stuck in a perpetual delirium, alternating in between a feverish lustful and loving influenza of the heart, body, and mind.

Eulogy to my grandmother

This blog actually started out as a response to an email of a friend asking me how I was feeling from the death of my grandmother. Then I realized it was probably more than this person actually wanted to read so I decided to respond with a simple ok and spill the wreckage here:

I am doing mostly ok...it kinda depends on the moment. Sometimes I spontaneously burst into tears and cry. Right now I am fighting them because I have so much to do tonight since I decided to ignore my responsibilities for today in order to reflect. I needed to figure out why I am constantly bursting into tears because it made little sense to me, that I keep crying like this since yesterday after I received the call from my father that my grandmother had died. 

To be honest, my relationship to my grandmother was minimal--after all she lived in Guatemala my whole life and I saw her a total of maybe 7-10 times--I am not even sure how accurate this number is. Mostly my memories of her consist of her telling me I am gorda (meaning fat in Spanish). Not really my most treasured memories but at least I met the woman. Maybe it was her way of showing affection and saying, "Your dad takes good care of you." Either way, it's true and it doesn't really matter to me at this point. 

The more morbid side of me has thought about this day. I knew it would happen some day and I always thought that it would be like hearing the death of a celebrity in the news. Sort of like when I found out Steve Jobs died recently and I thought, "I hope his family is ok." And I would carry on with my life as if nothing had changed in my life. Yet when my call ended with my father, I bursted into tears. I was walking from downtown Davis to my house. There I was on 2nd St crying as I tried to hurry home to hideaway in my little nest of safety. I couldn't make sense of the feeling. Did I love this woman? Who was she to me? 

It didn't take long that evening to figure out the source of pain: my father's voice. The most painful aspect of my grandmother's death has been hearing  and seeing my father cry (this is only the fourth) about her death and knowing he wanted nothing more than to say goodbye in person before she passed away and that he didn't make it. My heartbreaks knowing he is Guatemala right now without me. I guess, it's more of a selfish pain that I feel because I want to be there with him to protect him or maybe I need him to protect me from my own thoughts? Maybe I am seeking reassurance that he is going to be ok?

As a little girl, my dad was like a superhero to me. There had never been anyone like him, he was my Zorro (the one and only Halloween costume I remember him wearing when I was about four years old). Yet, in the last few years I have noticed him getting considerably older and physically weaker. His once invincible muscular arms and legs seem to be part of some distant past, some kind of romanticized version of my father as this magical man capable of performing amazing physical feats. I was certain my dad could have beaten up any one of my ex-boyfriends. In fact, you know kids sometimes "joking" around say, "well my daddy can totally beat up your daddy." You remember that? Well, I told my ex (my daughter's father) that my papa could totally beat not his dad but him up. He looked at me and laughed but I was serious--I really believed it then. Man, I thought my dad was like Arnold back in his bodybuilding days...that man did not really exist but nonetheless it was the reality I was certain of. 

So yeah, I thought my dad was my superhero, someone I could turn to no matter what. Now-a-days, I am far more reluctant to call when I need something because I don't want to stress him out--in fact, I don't do it anymore, I seek to solve my problems on my own. This is probably a mixture of self-responsibilty and this growing need to protect my father in some strange existential way that I am yet not able to articulate. When I go visit my parents, I look at his tired face and his ability to fall asleep in the mist of loud conversations, which he pretends to be a part of with a random comment that makes little to no sense to the conversation. I guess what I am trying to say with all of this is that the death of my grandmother just puts into perspective my father's own mortality. My father is aging. My dad is going to die. One day, I will lose him. Death is real.

So these tears that keep surfacing are my tears to him. He is grieving his mother but I am grieving him. My grieving is selfish because I won't miss my grandmother but I will miss father. I need to save him, somehow! Yet there is nothing I can do...

Another part of me knows that now my father is forever a changed man. The man my father was before my grandmother's death is now gone because I have seen the consequences of losing a mother. My maternal grandmother died December 30, 1998 and this date changed my mother forever. My mother always tells me the mourning of both parents being deceased is forever present and makes one feel like an orphan in the world because the people that have brought you into the world are gone. She says that you are no longer someone's child, you're an orphan.

I am not saying my dad will be like my mother, they are very different people with two very different outlooks on life but I know for a fact my father is forever changed and forever will feel this loss. Remember earlier when I said I had seen my father cry only three times prior to this? Well, one was a drunken night when I was a little girl where he was telling me he loved me, the other was when he talked about my grandfather (who died when my dad was only eighteen), and when I got married. Don't get me wrong, I honor this woman who raised twelve children on her own, my father being only the second oldest. But my grandmother is more of folklore to me, a women I only know through stories spun together by my father. I love her because she gave me him. For this I will be eternally grateful but I do not mourn her because she had her life, eighty-two years of it. I mourn for my father--he is now more vulnerable than ever--he is an orphan. I am not sure what it is like to be an adult Guatemalan man despite my vivid imagination but as a Latin-American (almost) thirty year old woman, I sometimes feel like I need my papa and my mami. There is a part of me that has refused to grow up and is vulnerable. From what I hear, this child remains a part of our lives and at times needs consoling. I imagine this child is present right now in my father. I want to cradle this child and hold him. I want him to feel comforted. This would comfort me.

This is why I want to be with him because I know he is in pain...I want to protect him from himself because he is only going to act like a "man" (in that Latin-American tradition) and hold the pain inside. He is going to feel obligated to be strong for the rest of my extended family. I don't want him to have to do that. He needs me. 

Maybe I am elevating his ability to open up with me, maybe even this is some other fiction that resides in my head, but I honestly feel like he opens up to me more than anyone else. Not that he pours his soul but he exposes a little bit more of that vulnerability he was raised to eternally keep hidden. My father has never been a man of expressive emotions but I know inside of him lives an immensity of love, devotion, and optimism I have never known in anyone else. My dad is amazing, he is the type of person that you want to be next to in tragedy, he would turn it into a moment of thankful reflection. He'd be the one to remind you of everything you do have--that's my dad, eternal optimism. According to him, it will always gets better. And believe me, as much as it has irritated me at times because I want to be victimized, it is always my ultimate conclusion to my problems. 

Yesterday when I drove him to San Francisco International, I could hear him crying. I couldn't see it because it was dark but the occasional wiping of the nose would confirm my suspicions. I wanted to cry too, I wanted to tell him that it was going to be ok. I didn't know how. I tried to talk to him about his feelings but I noticed that he was not really paying attention and possibly a little frustrated because I kept talking about it so finally I talked about frivolous things. I talked about my dreams and passions to which he seemed like he was only half listening, not that I expected more. The thing is, I was sharing these things with him because I wanted him to see that despite my rebellious years, he was continually (and still is) a source of inspiration for me. He never gave up, he never does. So in-between the frivolous words of my conversation of academics and the philosophical undercurrents of Arte Povera, I was secretly whispering into my words,"I am just like you, you see? I keep following my dream even when I have had to fight against the ocean currents that have knocked me down and constantly taken me back to shore." 

I have never been the most conventional person or followed the most conventional path. I have been difficult and I am far from the conservative political ideals of my father. We don't agree on religion either. He thinks I am an atheist. Sometimes we sit in uncomfortable silences on the phone when he tries to "check" on me seemingly nonchalant. And sometimes even though we are both speaking in Spanish, it is like we are speaking two different languages. We rarely see eye-to-eye. My father is a man of mystery, part illusion and fantasy, some constructed from photographs, my faulty memory, and his fantastical stories interwoven with magic and white lies. Fundamentally, I am just like him. I am hardheaded, fire-spitting, won't take shit, hardworking person...it just took me nearly thirty years to realize it. 

Although it may not seem like it, this really is a eulogy to my grandmother, even though my grief is not because if I am a consequence of my father, well then, I am eternally grateful to this woman I never really knew and helped form the first man I have ever loved.

Italia = amore o ossessione?

I have 236 pages of reading tonight to complete for my classes tomorrow and I have read maybe 97 pages or so. I am so easily distracted and I have one obsession driving me crazy right now: Italy.
Instead of doing the reading I was assigned as homework, I have spent the last couple of hours reading, looking, etc about Italy...more specifically Rome. Maybe it doesn't help that I am reading Renaissance literature this summer and am studying the Italian Futurists in my "Avant-Gardism" class. Maybe all this love of Italy is birthed from the fact that I cannot get away from it. She is everywhere but then again she is here by choice, she is not forced upon me. After all, I have chosen to double major in Italian.
Did the whole universe conspire to this love? Was that fateful day in which I left to what I thought to be "randomness" to learn a new language predestined?
I cannot say. All I can say that that July of 2009 when I pulled "Italian" from my plastic bag, I was somewhat relieved that I wasn't going to have to learn a whole new script for Arabic. I remember immediately going to Livemocha and beginning my Italian "courses." Arguably we could say that Italian is so similar to Spanish and this has greatly facilitated my learning of it but I was also rather obsessive in my learning. I used to listen to the radio constantly, watched movies, tried to read in Italian--I am still amazed now when I listen (much less frequently) and I understand. I can understand! Isn't that amazing? Furthermore, people understand me! I speak and they understand me! I am by no means fluent but I am still amazed. I am amazed that what was once undecipherable is now intelligible language. Is it this that made me fall in love? Have I replaced all sense of romantic love into a country? It is possible.
I often say I am glad I am not Italian and I am very serious when I say this because if I was I probably would not love Italy as I do. The beauty of Italy is that it is not my own but foreign. Even in all of its foreignness it is mine because she has it all: art, food, language, music, landscape. She is not mine by obligation, she is mine because I have chosen her to be my lover and she always welcomes me with open arms. She does not stifle me. She accepts me with all my virtues and faults. And I have proof she loves me back because even when I visited her in winter she provided me beautiful sunny days and only rained the day of my departure.
Le sigh.
Do not ask me why I love her because I cannot tell you why. I just feel it. You know that sensation, the one that gives you butterflies in your tummy, that makes your chest ache, that makes you smile immediately at the thought...Italy is this to me. I cannot help but think of Carrie Bradshaw (sorry for those who never saw Sex in the City) and how she describe New York City as her lover. I understand now fully what she meant. The idea of Italy is so powerful in my mind, the ideal portrait of the Old World still living. Granted all of Europe contains this element but in Italy it is different. Maybe her landscape often reminds me of California and there is some comfort in that. Maybe it is the fact that the art I have loved from my childhood is housed in the Uffizi in Florence. Maybe it is the incredible diverse amounts of cheese and wine. Maybe it is the people and their melodious language accompanied by hand gestures. Non so e non posso spiegarlo, solo so che l'ho nel cuore.

Las dos Marianas

Las dos Fridas, 1939
Frida Kahlo

Since I was a little girl I can remember struggling with my own sense of identity. As the daughter of a Nicaraguan mother and a Guatemalan father born in California, I often wondered what my position within American society is. Am I American? Am I Latina? Do I speak English or Spanish better? It seems like I was never American or Latina enough. If behave a certain way and my mother will say, "¡Ay que Americana eres!" (Oh, you are so American!) or maybe I am with my American friends and I will hear, "Oh, you are so Latina!" I used to think this was some kind of struggle that would eventually end for me, that one day I will find my place within society but here I am twenty-nine years later still caught in some type of purgatory of cultural identity.

Las dos Fridas

I don't remember how I learned of this painting or even how old I was when I first saw it but what I do know is how profoundly this image affected me even without knowing who Frida Kahlo was. What I can tell you is how this image followed me like a silent ghost in the recesses of my unconsciousness until I was about sixteen years old and picked up a book at my high school library during lunch one day and experienced Gestalt's "aha" moment. There it was, this image that had embodied my experience of cultural identity on a page staring back at me like a reflection of some vague notion living within me.

On the surface it is obvious that the image is of self-conflict, Frida Kahlo finds herself torn between two identities. On the lefthand side is the European influenced Frida. She is dressed in a white dress of European influence with little flowers located on the bottom border. In her righthand she holds a pair of scissors attempting to stop blood from dripping onto her dress from a vein. There is an open cavity in her chest where we see her visible heart that is cross-sectioned and is connected to the vein dripping onto her dress to the Frida to her left. The Frida on the righthand side is the Mexican Frida, she is wearing the traditional indigenous garment of Mexico (specifically Mexico City area). Her chest cavity is also opened but unlike the Frida on the left, her heart is complete and in her lefthand she is holding a tiny photo of her husband Diego Rivera. At the very epicenter of the painting both Fridas are joined by the hands reinforcing Fridas double penetrating stares onto the viewer. While analyzing this image not only are the two Fridas a direct reference to her internal conflict of identity but it also speaks in symbolism. The gray cloudy background only adds to the sense of confusion and uncertainty.

I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that this image spoke to "little" Mariana, my rebel and turmoiled Mariana, and now adult Mariana. There is something in me that has not changed even after all these years. I am still lost in my sense of cultural identity. I do not feel a citizen of any country or part of any culture. Although I do identify with certain parts, I am not faithful to any. I will never be Latina enough. I will never be American enough. Case closed.

So where do I go from here? Lately, I have been having some guilt about my studies. I am starting to feel a traitor to my Latina side. After all, I am so involved with the study of European art and as if this were not enough, I have become somewhat obsessed with European life. I can speak fluent Spanish, advanced Italian, moderate level of French and more obviously, I speak fluent English. My whole life is a representation of the colonization and domination of European culture, to only be reinforced by American imperialism. Sitting in my classes, I feel so departed from my Latina identity. Who have I become? What is the importance of identity?


Las dos Fridas has been on my mind lately. These are some of the questions that this painting deals with, Frida Kahlo is asking herself about her position in society, her identity as a woman, and artist. She was a socialist, an advocate of the indigenous groups, she dealt with the conflict of her unfaithful husband--she was struggling with a multifaceted struggle of her identities. Her figure is parted into two physical parts but these two selves contain other smaller parts of identity. I don't want to go too deep into further analysis of these smaller parts which depart from my purpose but they are certainly worth exploring at some point.

I conclude this thought with this: I want to do my honors thesis on Frida Kahlo. I am not sure what I want to do or what the goal of this thesis will be but I feel a moral obligation to write about her. I know a part of this exploration is personal but the personal often times transcends to a greater population. I know that my confusion of cultural identity is a commonplace occurrence of 1st generation born Latinos. We struggle with our sense of identity, with the duality of the cultural components that formulate Latin American identity itself and because art is a reflection of the human experience, it is this that has inspired my desire to further explore Frida Kahlo and her cultural significance in the history of art.

Thoughts on a flight back version 2.0

I am still adjusting to being back home. I am trying to keep myself entertained, ready to get back to work, and mentally prepared to go back to school. But for now, I have this to share:

7/27/10 7:22 PM (+1 GMT)—10:22 AM (-9 Pacific)

            According to the little screen in the seat in front of me there are seven hours and four minutes until I arrive in San Francisco and the melancholy of wanderlust has already begun to settle in. There isn’t any amount of words or images that I could compile that could explicate to the fullest the adventures I have lived the last 35 days. As much as I miss my family and most importantly my daughter, I have to admit that a part of me wants to continue forward with the adventure but all good things must come to an end and this adventure is no exception.

            I received a very special gift from my friend and penpal Ellenita, as I call her, to read on my train ride from Antwerp to Amsterdam. She gave me a list of her 50 favorite traveling quotes to read. As I read them I cried because I not only related to the words immensely but because I had left behind a true friend and I was not sure when I would see her again (I hate goodbyes). These quotes came at a very important time in my journey where I felt so scared and vulnerable of what the future of my trip would be like…when I was so close to regretting leaving home and thinking very strongly about coming home early. Ellenita, although only knowing me physically for only three days (but about six months through handwritten letters and art) knew exactly what to share with me. In these quotes I rediscovered all the joys of traveling and finally organized my thoughts as to why I love traveling so much, it is realizing that traveling has the ability to make us vulnerable and trusting to humanity to a degree that can only be comparable to falling in love. To me traveling has become not about what I see but the experiences I share with those I meet. Believe me, sitting in front of the Eiffel Tower alone was great but it suddenly became far more amazing when a young French man approached me and told me not only the history of the Eiffel tower but his personal heartbreak story which included this iconic tower, an affair, and ultimately to the destruction of his relationship. It is these genuine stories that make traveling so fulfilling—it is the little things that people can only share with you because they’re not paid tour guides designated to share with you a certain story but because they are real people with histories and experiences. One cannot help but conclude that in the end, humans are humans no matter where you go and that we all fundamentally feel and desire similar things. In traveling we realize the only thing that really changes are languages, cultures, and environments. These things we call borderlines are just fictional lines that categorizes us into labels that sets a group of rules on the way people see us. Amazing (verbazingwekkend).

            Maybe being a lonesome traveler has made me become that bartender that listens to all the stories of clientele coming into the bar. You hear all sorts of stories from all sorts of people of all sorts of walks of life. Some people you meet along the way you know that you will keep in contact with, some you feel so insanely connected you can’t help but wonder why the universe is so cruel to keep you over 10,000 miles apart, and others, well, they are just people of the moment or enter to give you an anecdote. In any case, each experience is gratifying and has some inherent lesson. And oddly enough by being a lonesome traveler I have discovered that I am never truly alone. Loneliness is the one bond we all share.

            Before I left, a fellow artist said to me that he had read a very interesting book about randomness and that life is composed of continuously random situations that are meaningless. I find this so difficult to believe because every single experience has lead me to something greater, something more grand and fascinating. And if it is all just randomness and chaos, what a beautiful randomness and chaos humans live in! Even daily and ordinary life can be extraordinary to the eyes of a stranger.

            So you see, I can show you all the images I have taken, I can tell you of the places I saw and the people I met but it is just not enough. It is not enough to tell or show, it is something that can only be lived. Then again, maybe if I had the gift of writing I could share with you the details of each and every one of my experiences. And so this is the beginning of an end and I am completely transformed once again.

            To the people I have met along the way, I have to thank EVERY single one of you, you have all played an important part of the story of my life. Each one has left me stories to replay in my memory. I love these memories, to contemplate them in the moments of the mundane routine.

            And so since I already wrote a blog of my experience in London, the only logical conclusion is to share my experience beginning in Amsterdam on June 26 but this writing I will begin in another moment because my laptop battery life is running low and I think I want to take a nap to kill some hours to San Francisco. The plane ride home is always the hardest because there is too much time for reflection and fermenting of memory…the longing and desire to go back.

And by the way this time, I didn’t miss my flight home…just in case you were wondering.

Californication, Day 2

On my second day I decided I would go to Point Lobos since I had never been there. I hate to sound like a drag but I wasn't that impressed. Maybe it was the fact that I paid $10 and I expected to see something

absolutely amazing--breathtaking really. Not to downplay the beautiful nature I did see, but there were so many people and the trails were packed that I really didn't feel like I connected with nature as much this day as I had the day before. I did, on the other hand, see a lot of interesting colors and I got some interesting shots.

There were a lot of different colors that I caught on the path. There was interesting color moss growing on the trees that I really wanted to capture on camera. Actually, I wanted to touch it but since I agree with the Girl Scout’s ideology on "Leaving no trace," I stayed on the trail and touched nothing. I can't say I wasn't extremely tempted.

I also saw a lot of interesting people on this hike. First, I saw this guy jogging, no not jogging, running. Why he was running, I'm not really sure but he looked hot, sweaty, and red. I'm going to guess he was exercising but it seemed like an odd place to workout, being that it is a State Forest where you pay $10 to get in. HAHA, can you tell I'm still upset about my $10? Well, I am. Okay, maybe I was expecting a spiritual epiphany again and I tried to make the best of the situation by taking photographs and hiking but I just never got into it. I just kept thinking of that peaceful scene of the day before and nothing was comparing until I had a brilliant idea: to go to the beach again! So I hopped back in my car and head for Carmel's Beach.

By this time it was getting close to 4PM and though the beach was packed due to the warm weather, I found a nice little spot that was secluded and I read. I sat at the beach for two hours and then went to my room to gather up my stuff to get ready for the photo shoot I

had scheduled with the person I was staying with but she never showed up. Slightly dissappointed, I headed towards Asilomar Beach in Pacific Grove and there I

enjoyed the sunset. As I walked around taking pictures, I saw a little girl named Janelle (2 years old) playing in the sand and I wanted to take a picture of her. Of course, I asked her mother and she said it was okay. Janelle just looked so cute in her little dress playing in the sand. This made me think a lot of Yasmin. Next time, I promised myself, I would bring Yasmin. She deserves to enjoy the beach as much as I do.

This is how I spent my last hours in the Monterey Peninsula. I enjoyed the sunset and the beautiful colors created by the reflection of the sky. I am in love with the ocean and I can’t wait to go again…at least, for now, I have photographs of my escape.

Californication, Day 1

The best place to begin a story, is...well the beginning. And sure, I have a few literary options on how I can tell this story but I am not here to have a discussion of literary styles. Today, I am here to discuss my escape into solitude.

I am small. I am so small.

I don't know how many times that very thought entered my mind as I stared off into the immensity of the ocean. I would close my eyes and I felt the ocean air wrap me tightly in a solitude and at the same time with a the connectedness of the Universe. I am small.

Sometimes I just need to get away and I wanted to go alone, to a place where I could only find myself and that is what indeed happened. I went to the very place I had been trying to avoid for so long--Monterey Bay. Actually, Day 1 consisted of going to Big Sur which is off of Highway 1. Needless to say it is extremely beautiful.
In the solitude of the road, I realized I was very happy driving. I don't think I've been happy driving since I was sixteen years old. I was so alone and there I was confronted with myself, a person I knew and I liked. I never knew the day would come that I would be confident and proud of my accomplishments. Furthermore, I also realized that I much rather be alone than to be in an unhappy situation, which I was for so long.

Honestly, I left Sacramento without much of a plan. I had a place to stay and I packed enough food and clothes for three days, just in case I didn't come back on Sunday as planned. So when I arrived early afternoon Saturday, instead of staying close to Pacific Grove, I decided to keep driving on Highway 1. My initial decision did not include going to Big Sur but I did contemplate the thought briefly because I wanted to see Climbing Poe Tree at the Spirit Garden. Things didn't go as planned. Instead I went to Pfeiffer Beach and stayed there ALL DAY LONG until sunset.

I can't even tell you exactly what I did aside from taking a few pictures and meditating. Wait, let me rephrase this, that is all I did. I went to the beach and I laid there and meditated on the sound of the waves for nearly three hours. Yes, that's right: THREE HOURS, I thought of nothing else but the sound of waves. There was a faint whisper and all I could hear is, We are one and You are small.

The Sunset was creeping onto me and I realized that it was probably not a good idea to be alone on a desolate beach after dark. Therefore I gathered by belonging and walked to my car. Little did I know that waiting for me on Highway 1 was one of the most beautiful scenes in nature that I would ever come to see. A fog was beginning to come in and this created something like an optical illusion. It seemed like the fog was like another ocean in the sky. I want to say that the photographs that I took captured this emotion well but this is a lie. It does not compare to the entire experience of colors and the scent of the fresh oceanic air.

The night would have been perfected had I stayed in Big Sur to watch Climbing Poe Tree but I didn't want to drive back in the darkness of the late night back to Pacific Grove. But like I said the sunset was amazing and I took so many pictures. I want to include them all but they could never justify the evocation of the moment. If I could just describe the feeling...if I could just hand over the peace I felt in that moment I would share it with the world. Now I understand why the Transcendentalists believed in returning to nature. The immensity of nature makes you believe...makes you feel Spiritual.
I know I could this spirituality here at home, in the local nature but I feel that the solitude of this area is so incomparable. Besides there is no beach, close to home, that compares.
In any case, I felt so good and lucky that I had the opportunity to go to Big Sur for the first time in my life. This was a perfect day, despite the four hours I spent in the car and anyone that knows me, knows that I can barely stand fifteen minutes in the car let alone driving. Yes, it was a good day...

Doodling my life away

Lately I've reached an artist block. I suppose it is something like a writer's block but this particular block is truncating all of my visual art efforts. My muses have abandoned me so instead I have found a different creative outlet.
Now-a-days, with all this "free" time that I now I have, I find that the most creative thing I can do is ride my bike. I've been taking 27 to 40 mile bike rides. During these bike rides I spend hours in meditation where I go from every range of emotion from happiness to sadness to anger and back. Sometimes I am just riding along enjoying the sun and the nature surrounding the American River bike trail. Lake Natomas is actually very beautiful and I really enjoy sitting on the river bank taking a break and attempt to do some drawing. I try to just doodle to get my creative juices going but lately nothing is sparking my imagination. So after a few drawings like these I just enjoy the scene of the lake for a little longer and then hop right back onto my bike.

Muses, where have you disappeared to?

I feel like there is so much inside of me that could be used to inspire, yet I feel dry. I have always been interested in the interplay of words and visual art so I started doodling today in my journal and I came up with a semi-poem and color piece but even this is blah.
All of this non-inspiration inspired me to rearrange my room to hopefully improve the Zen of my creative space. I have to say that it is looking good right now though I am not finished. I still need to clean up some stuff lying around and build my new art table, which I bought over two months ago by-the-way. Hopefully these changes will revitalize my visual art and bring a surge of creativity my way. One can only hope...