PL.1
I welcome it this year. It was right around the corner right around the bend.
The autumn fall is here upon us. I welcome the cool the fresh the dimly lit solemn skies. Excitedly anticipating the coming changes in season this year. Why fore?
The slight humid fresh change within “The Air” is quite noticable to the nose.
The subtle change in “The Brightness” factor as the sun backs farther away.
“The Temp” is briskly crisper now as the sun’s rays are reduced in intensity.
PL.2
Here she comes, that fall again. Rusty evergreen dried up tree tags hang within the tree’s outer branches. Less birds exploding loud melodies. Awakening to thick fog diffused suspended filling the empty in-between spaces of the once brightly lit dappled forest.
Fog horns trumpet call from boats far away in the distance. I welcome the changes.
I find myself incrementally also altering habits in my day to days. Coffee now sometimes instead of the normal herb tea. Woolen socks sometimes instead of the perpetually barest of feet. Thinking about baking bread this time round instead of buying bread.
Back into the not so hot temp-wise studio to begin painting ...
PL.3
...painting...yes again yes every yeaah day.
Rappin' up now the whole house cleanse on account of the kitty sickness. I rented a carpet cleaner and then bubble suds washed then draped the carpets out to dry on the sunny deck.
Wow I should have done this ages ages ago. What a difference. Then mop cleaned all the wooden floors underneath followed up by applying a shiny gloss finish.
PL.4
Wow and a wow again. I should have done this eons and eons ago. The carpet color volume now turned up. In moving all the furniture outside, we decided to edit alot of bulky items.
For starters we threw away the futon couch. We put the super large football field dining table in storage along with all the leaf extensions that even added more real estate table top area and six, let me repeat SIX !! stately dining room chairs, some with arms that blocked pushing them underneath the table edge and took up more floor acreage footage inside our cozy little cabin. We have not used a-l-l-l-l-l l l this s-t-u-f-f-f-f-f f-ff a-lot-ta to the maximum use-age, just a few minimal lavish big blow out party occasions over all these years.
They all just filled all up the entire-ity of all our inner inside
living space.
PL.5
Yep. I’m telling ya. The All of the space. The All of it. No parts left alone. No space empty. The All of it. The up the down the length width breadth of it the circumference diameter parabola parallelogram-ness of it.
PL.6
The thick the thin the symmetry sideways
intersectional directionals
of it.
The in-front between the out-back betwixt
the vortex the axis
and the inside-out and even the outside-in
of it.
PL.7
The very very center of it and each and every corner of it. And most definitely, yes, even the square root of it. The squarest of roots to the second most power.
PL.8
All That. And All of That, all at the same time. Filled up space.
What we substituted for this large, size of a continent table and six fine chairs is a table called a bar table. It is long 64” and a very narrow 18. ” Fits right under tucked in under the entire window sill. One edge is a “live” edge and matches the thickness of the milled wooden window sills. We got two bar stool chairs that prop the sitter up high enabling extensive expansive outside the window visually visible vista views. So now !! we sit real close up like to the window. We had some guests and so we pulled the narrow table out into the room perpendicular to the window, and then
PL.9
staggered sat each person which worked like
and-dah one
and-dah two
and-dah three
virtuoso-ly like evenly balanced evenly spaced singers in a choir
We have front row outside seats now. See all the natural beauty goin’ on right outside in plain view. I had last spring planted 4 evergreen trees which we now literally watch buds pinecones & branches sprout grow emerge appear. We popped in a bird bath which adds to the scene of da woody hood. The neighborhood gang birdys splish splash having a bath with water spritzed far and wide all round like a water fountain. They have such splashing under the wings fun. And so are we, as a captive audience observing. These changes have improved our day to day immensely. We enjoy our outside open spaces and inside place space here so much. The into the far and future big change for post kitty covid decontamination is a corner couch that has been selected even the fabric color chosen ordered coming round the corner coming round the mountain as a christmas surprise.
The nearest nextest biggest on-going project in the works is Joe’s office. I do not know how he has retro-fitted his office over the years into various somewhat awkwardly enclosed locales. He has been tucked under the flight of our MC Escher stairs that access the loft.
We have freed him up because now we can. All this brand new space new area new air new breath of fresh air created by removing the size of a continent football field dining room table.
PL.10
The space itself was actually already there all along. We only just uncovered revealed exposed and brought to the light. Realms were recognized, created, and formed into brand new sweeping sizes & shapes when we removed multitudes of solid sturdy sound stout structures and hungry space devouring stuffy stuff stuffers which took up massive amounts of territorial terrain.
Voila ! let’s stand inside
this newly illuminated expanse
& flap-our-arms up & down
& jump up & down
& twirl around in circles & cartwheels
in this open dance floor roller skating rink sized
kind of spacious new roomy room.
We found a matching desk same same as the bar table only the dimensions are lower wider and more desk tableau like. It is going to be grrrreat for Joe to breathe in & out & stretch out & extend openly outwardly and all aroundly. All. At the same time. Joe found braces that hold monitors & laptops way high up in flight off the desk top surface. This creates more table top more spacious tap dancing keyboard space. Space that had just been hovering around above the desk’s top surface just waiting to be discovered. Also, a keyboard shelf has been attached underneath the table’s top, space which used to only hold, used to contain, empty void blank space floating above the knees air. Now it accomodates a keyboard that can roll out to be used or roll in to be not used. And that’s how we roll.
Cool ! anew anew anew. Oh soe-lah mea-oh open. We got out a ruler and made some hmm-measurements. Come to find out there are filing cabinets out there that just hold files and that is all. The big bulky muscular model weighs a ton one we have been using includes special additional added un-attractive features : wide girthy gaping open unoccupied side rooms with lottsa un-used space empty MT side and back vacant cavitys within the cavernous drawers. More newly discovered space hidden deep inside the confines of a walled in wooden stuffy box labeled, a filing cabinet. We found an all black much little-er sleeker sexy metal filing cabinet with hot rod wheels. This baby takes up nearly half the amount of space, besides nimbly glides around with pomp, ease, grace & circumstance.
I am exaggerating just a titch possibly saves more like a third less space.
All these spacial special beneficial improvements that are easy to do.
You just have to see and look in order to find them.
PL.11
They are all there in front of your eyes hiding inside outside and all around in corners only they are in disguise and filled with humph enough with stuff with fluff.
All we did was LOOK
PL.12
at what we have not been
seeing, really.
We clipped some corners and made space by utilizing all these hidden pockets of UN-used space. I get jazzed over using the old pointy noggin to improve every day every where everything all at once all what one gets used to if you only observe the blindly obvious and alter. It’s all about dimensions. Specifically possibly only three or four dimensions.
Time and space continuums. It’s all about time it’s all about space.
Space the final frontier. Do you copy Houston ?
The world.
This crazy whirling whorld
getting more more cuckoo crackers with every passing day.
PL.13
This crazy world has become one now in which
people just go around making
things Up !!
All the time everywhere. It is the latest socially acceptable ( really ? ) unacceptable
crazy craze. Look at our so-called leaders and politicians will not mention any names.
Make things up. Make believe world. So many of them. Ittsa trend its seems.
( I hope it IS a trend and is temporary. ) Now the general public following.
Once upon a time … there was a deeply instilled moral value called The Truth.
Where has integrity poof disappeared. Gone.
The other day Joe and I took a walk on the lane behind our house. We found a posted sign staked into the ground on our vacant property that said that read - “For Sale” - our property was for sale.
PL.14
What the heck it is not. I called our wise local real estate agent Karen Everett who is in the know. She looked up the local listings and did not find us anywhere.
Crazy. Possibly ? A scam ? A joke ? Is this even supposed to be ha ha funny ?
Somebody felt a tad bored ?
PL.14
A real live make believe scam I was informed of by Karen has happened almost twice nearby with vacant lots. Vacant lots just sitting there waiting for some make believe artist to claim and sell as theirs ??
Somebody living in an imaginary world place
claims our space
as their space
to a wanna be I’m a believer
who thinks they are buying
a for sale space. Make believers
make shit up like fake for sale space
Make believers.
One other encounter we just had recently with the now commonplace make believe make up shit world happened last month. We ordered two bar stools. We were shipped two very wrong besides very ugly bar stools. We were then informed that these two very wrong and very ugly bar stools were “unreturnable.” We would receive our so-called “replacements” shortly.
A very loud notification announcement sounded off in my brain a public address system broadcast to me myself I : "Kris, this is NOT sounding feeling or seems right or normal in any way shape size or manner."
Sure enough. Two more yet very differently very ugly and still very wrong again for the second round of shipments bar stools were shipped to us. The oh so friendly have a nice day customer dis dis-service make believe experts would not accept nor acknowledge the fact that they screwed up. “We made a mistake” is not in their lingo language or vocabulary nor written in their return policy. The only option I was given to rectify their wrongs was this :
I was very politely informed to read the return policy. This second set of designated “returnable” very ugly bar stools could only be shipped back at my expense and only in their original unblemished packaging. The only other “option” I had was keep all their very ugly unwanted inventory. That was it. I reminded them that they made the mistake(s) in the first place and in the second place of not actually sending us what was ordered. Is receiving the wrong merchandise classified as a customer's return ? Why is their mistake(s) now my responsibility ? They were deaf and dumb and dumber to the fact. I was in the process of searching for and contacting the CEO only to discover a chart on-line showing the company’s millions and millions in earnings over the years. A very steep uphill pro-sperous line that peaked a few years back and now the once steep uphill pre-posterous line turned and was heading sharply straight downhill fast-tracking way back down
to zero to nadda zip diddly-squat nothing all done bye bye
Zero. When I “saw” that chart I instantly got it and knew what I had to do.
I understood !! I got it !! Lightbulb !! Mr. Edison !! Eureka folks the real answer.
I had to do absolutely nothing. Nada. Jack squat. Zilcho. I was free.
Zippity Doo Dah my friends. My frustrations were poof ! flip of a lightswitch off - gone.
I realized I am free and clear.
The company’s karma will be taken care of itself by itself.
Choosing our battles, we dropped all 4 of the very ugly stool samples off at the good will place. The stools were not second hand. They were hands off and very bad karma.
Our mission was de-contanimating our home.
Mission accomplished.
We choose only to do business with forthright businesses. I feel we did not get burned.
We got knowledge. Educated. I let it them go. How does seeing the unseen work in this
instance ? Not seeing the return policy’s finest slippery small print ? Or not seeing the writing on the wall.
PL.15
That who I was trying to work with simply only wanted to play a game.Their game, and they make up their rules and they make up the rules as they go along. Me ?? Don't want to play.
PL.16
Not interested in make believers trying to get you to make believe what they were trying to sell you .Make shit up.
PL.17
Or what the make believers were trying to make you see.
This is a partially inadequate explanation of how I see karma : everytime I miss getting onto the ferry boat by a single car and it is such a close call, I, dissappointed sure enough because I always want to get back home, then, very quickly, very soon to follow, very predictably, lottsa times the very next time I try to make it onto the ferry boat, I am the last car loaded on, and surprisedly and shockingly make it on by just a squeek, a close call and the swing of the pendulum swings back to the other direction the complete other end of the spectrum, an unexpected event that I had not counted on by the odds
but was just given,
just handed,
here Kris,
just just just : becuzz.
Bearly not make it on. Bearly do make it on.
Do the math. It’s called karma. with a little yin/yang mixed in ...
Symmetry. Balance.
Works everytime.
I don’t want to end on a low note about make believers.
So I will end on a high note about believers in the truth :
During covid esp. I spent much time type -ity typing with bad posture. Writing letters to friends to connect instead of having face to face connections. Over time my right shoulder froze solid locked up. I could not reach across the chest or behind me. My doc sent me to a physical therapist and all that did was show me my lack of range. I got alotta ouch pain with all those forcing to stretch exercises. Went through the 6 week torture sessions.
On my own advice I tried accupuncture. I have always responded well to accupuncture. I found a puncture person. Many sessions later no luck and in no better or worse shape.
Possibly my puncturist was not a pro-punciture. She kept putting most all the pins in my hurt shoulder to stimulate stimulation.I don't know. I do know that when I had leftover surgery knee pain once the puncture person loaded up my opposite elbow with pins. Really. The knee pain poof vanished gone bye bye.
I went out of there believing that the left knee bone was connected to the right elbow bone.
Lawd have mercy.
Is that how it works ?
After a couple years of this not getting anywhere nowhere and worse all at once, having not only a steel shoulder joint now an iron neck lock was bolted on. I tried going to my chiropractor, Anne Reilly. She got me in front of a mirror to see the damage I had inflicted upon my lazy shoulder self. To my complete horror my right shoulder had shockingly distressingly dropped way way slumpingly down at a sloped downward angle. I had unknowlingly slumped my way through covid. This was a bad slump habit gone awry. I had changed how I held my body so much it was inoperable. It was more than a muscle issue this was how I even held my bones.
We started with shoulder moves. I had to relearn how to re-balance myself by even going so far as to feeling unbalanced to compensate for my off center body. We got my arm freed up by working it to remove the physical obstacles, namely the scapula. And she freed up the shoulder without causing any pain. I had to lay a certain unbalanced propped up way to be able to open it up, if that makes any sense. I had in the past kept trying to move my arm with my shoulder socket impingeing my scapula. I needed to learn how to raise my scapula.
Yet all my parts being related as they were perfectly assembled and granted to me 68 years ago, were now all slightly tilted furthering the after affects of misalignment.
So, next in line is get my right hip tucked back in because comfortable for me was to stick it out to compensate for the forward slumped shoulder which unbalanced my feet weight and caused strain in the neck, all due to the tilts like tectonic plates moving sliding causing tensions rings of fire and Pacific Ocean sized painful wants to crack fault lines.
Something’s gotta give. Everything’s strung togther inter-twined inter-related string theoried tied.
PL.18/19
So !! Each progression each step with one foot forward, finds me needing to relearn other parts that need tweeking all throughout the body countenance the body conveyance belt line. I am feeling getting there slowly fantastic. I see so much progress and freed up hip hip hooray movement. I feel so much less ache less pain less strain and less brain drain.
I am rethinking how to use my body. I even needed to learn how to twist from my torso when reaching and not just use the arm to reach. How’s that for beginner’s mind and for re-learning how to move again ?? I also found that my go-to position to sit, is, with my legs tucked up under me and to one side. The Leaning Tower of Pisa folks. Leaning tilting torso again. Because of what I find comfortable, there goes that right hip sticking out again, even in how I sit. This week I was made aware of how I stand on my feet, another extension of my lop sided stance and countenance.
Basically it is only and all about awareness.
Along with a focus on Balance.
Besides finding the just right stand-up-guy-or-gal, the one with answers for specifically your questions type-of-skilled Real Pro-practicioner.
Basically it is only and all about awareness.
I do hear myself repeating my self.
PL.20
Let me reiterate. Basically, this is another definition of awareness : :
All I did was look at what I was not seeing.
Did it help to use a light bulb this time. Or a guide.
PL.21
It is eye opening and I opening to look at what you do not see.
PL.22
The once invisible visible comes into focus.
Into range. Into awareness. Into a part of your day to day.
One does not see what is right in front of you.
Just like finding space in our cabin’s library dining room table and chairs.
Finding space even hidden deep inside a drafty wind filled filing cabinet.
Discovering layers of once invisible space by adding tools & props as in Joe’s office.
All stuff inter-stuff-connectedly stuff. Ducks in a row.
Elbow bone connected to the knee bone.
Feets don’t fail me now.
Are you standing up straight I don’t know.
See look observe look again.
Chains in a link. Pearls on a string. Events following a succession of steps.
Life is not a game to play. To some people it is.
Make believing is truly blindness.
Opening the doors of perception. Open the heart of perception.
Artists opening doors for others to really See for the first time. Nobody looked at reflections. Or atmosphere. Or personalities in portraits before those brave rebellious Impressionists.
Bravo. All you eye opening illuminators.
Thank you Chiro. Practor. Practicioner.
Skilled masters shedding light outwards.
Thank you Thomas Alva Edison, nicknamed the Wizard.
PL.23
Enlighteners. Eye openers. Educators.
If you look you will find. I openers.
I am freeing up my whole self by realizing my whole self.
Photo credits Kris Strell & locations:
PL.1 - LaConner, WA.
PL.2 - At Ria's
PL.3 - Home
PL.4 - Home
PL.5 - Jack London Sq., Oakland, CA.
PL.6 - At Ria's
PL.7 - At Ria's
PL.8 - Golden GatePark, SF. CA.
PL.9 - Chicago, IL.
PL.10 - LaConner, WA.
PL.11 - Isla Mujeres, Yucatan, Mexico
PL.12 - Salt River, AZ.
PL.13 - Times Sq, NYC.
PL.14 - Berkeley, CA.
PL.15 - ChinaTown, SF. CA.
PL.16 - Portland, OR.
PL.17 - SF. CA.
PL.18/19 - O'Hara, Chicago, IL.
PL.20 - Island Intl'Artists - Black Raven Press
PL.21 - Ballard, WA.
PL.22 - Ballard, WA.
PL.23 - SF, CA.