024 | A Morning Thought

If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes. - Agnes Varda

This morning I took a few hours to be alone with myself. Not just the present me, but also me from 2005, 2007, 2010. It has been a long time since I have woken up in the morning, regardless the day of the week, with no specific agenda. Even as I write this, I realize I lie, as I did have a meeting this morning, but for me, relative to an average day, this was light. With this rare and extra time on my hands, and being at my family’s home, I hobbled down to the basement to look for paint. I have had quite the itch to paint recently, and while digging for acrylics, I stumbled upon a trove of work from my younger years. Short stories, illustrations, portraits, still-lifes, lots of it. I set some pieces aside for future inspiration, and had many questions arise after reading the words of my seven year-old mind.

Apparently, I really liked math, and was good at it. I didn’t have to ask Mom or Dad for confirmation, I had the grade reports and weekly recap journals in front of me saying just that. Perusing through my art, there are lots of abnormal shapes, colors, odd characters, and wonderfully mispelled words like Ranebow (rainbow), Cinde (kind), Speshes (species), and Dinasore (dinosaur). The language of a six year old in 2007, a way of spelling that I wish I still used, and probably will now in some capacity. A few hours pass and I stand up, pack away the relics, and re-enter the present day, but there is a question that stuck with me, about the math thing. When I flip through my rolodex of memories, most of which are less visual as time progresses, but whose feelings steadily remain, I realize that I didn’t actually like math. In fact, I’m pretty sure I hated it. I could memorize how the numbers played with each other, and do well on tests, but I really don’t think I was a fan of the subject.

I looked beyond the sentences in my weekly journal stating “I like math”, for more evidence of this self-proclaimed affection toward it. Throughout my art there were no numbers, no straight-lined geometric shapes, but rather random squiggles, colors of all hues, and shapes of all size and form. I do remember loving art class, the paint under my nails, the frustrating inability to sketch like Mom, or depict realistic scenery like my Grandfather. And as I sit here now, listening to The Essential Rumi, drowning out the background noise from a biased media outlet pontificating on the television in the living room, I wonder. How much of what a younger human says or writes about their interests is truly what they believe? Or, if it is instead just what they think they should be saying, doing, liking? Someone tells a young soul, “you’re good at math, you must like math”, and the young soul thus thinks, ‘ooooooh yeah, I like math’.

This has been a ramble, I know, but I’m tying it all back to Agnes Varda now, just stay with me. The landscapes within us, they’ve always been there. New ones come to life each day. Some of these have been untended to for extended periods of time, they are covered in weeds, dead leaves, and fallen trees. Some are perfectly in order, with neatly trimmed zoysia grass, pruned boxwood shrubs, and lilies of the valley in full bloom. Every new decision, every new thought, every new move we make, a seed of life is planted on a new landscape. And every skill we hone, every conscious practice toward improvement, a shred of grass is trimmed, a new flower is planted in a landscape previously existing.

But what about those forgotten places? The places hidden beyond the prickly brush? Behind the unkempt take over by mother nature exist vast and vivacious rolling fields of greens, and blues, and yellows. The grass there is a little tall, and the flowers slightly overgrown, there may be a stray branch or fallen birds nest, but it is very, very much alive. When you meet a new soul for the first time, it is akin to driving down a driveway, or walking up to the front door of a home. You see what is presented in front of you. But, behind that door, through that gate, is a ceaseless, ever-growing, ever-expanding world with innumerable landscapes to explore, learn from, and be inspired by. The front door may say ‘I like math’, but the surfboard in the way, way, way back says ‘actually, I shred’.

So, you might be wondering how we got here, from all the way up there. You’re not alone, I am too. I think I discovered some old, untouched landscapes this morning, and it began by walking up the neatly kept path to the front door, unlocking it with a key I found under a small, caesious rock in the dirt, and simply running in. I think this could be a good practice for self-exploration, but an even better practice for learning about, and loving others. The farther I run inside, the deeper my love grows. And since the landscape never ends and the grasses never die, neither does the love.