by Marty Coleman | Sep 11, 2013 | Mr. Xperience Says - 2013 |
Xperience tells me today is day #4.
Creativity
When it comes to creativity, stopping is the worst thing you can do. Yes, we can get stuck. But, unlike real physical stuckness, in most of our stuck situations we can change our situation, environment, focus, etc. We can leave something behind and come back to it. Hopefully the going away leads to seeing the problem in a new light. If you are a visual artist it can be seeing the cool colors – the greens,yellows and purples – of outdoors instead of the warm colors of your indoor space.
If you are a musician, maybe it’s listening to something you would never listen to, or something you haven’t heard in 20 years, or listening to the sounds of the world of the city instead of the suburbs. Something to mix up your understanding of sound.
Writers can write a story they know will terrible because they don’t know the subject at all. That should unstick them in a hurry.
Relationships
The most important area to realize this lesson is in relationships. Being ‘stuck’ in some aspect of a marriage or partnership is so common as to almost be the norm. Taking steps to change a relationship is scary. It’s easy to be stuck due to fear that unsticking things will get out of control, will change in unforeseen ways, will be painful. But taking action is still the best course of action in spite of the fear.
The question is what creative steps can you take to unstick yourself. Not unsticking the other person, since you don’t really have control over them, but yourself. How can you unstick you? That will most likely lead to the log jam breaking apart. Maybe not right away bit it will happen.
How have you unstuck yourself in the past either creatively or in relationships?
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Jeanette Winterson, 1959 – not dead yet, English writer
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 10, 2013 | Mr. Xperience Says - 2013 |
Mr. Xperience sees this happen all the time, how about you?
The End – Husbands and Wives
You hear it often when a woman gets divorced. She lost herself in her husband’s identity, or maybe her kids’ identity. A few years later she doesn’t know who she is anymore. A divorce occurs and she goes on a quest to find herself. It can happen to men as well, though I don’t hear about it as often.
The Start – Friends and Family
But a person who allows themselves to get lost sometimes practiced getting lost a lot earlier in life. Maybe it was an outgoing, dynamic friend who took you under her wing. It seemed great at first but after a while you realize you had become just a shadow presence. Your real identity didn’t come out, just variations on the theme that was your friend’s identity.
Or maybe it was your very strong willed family. Maybe your mother pushed you to be just like her, and because you just never developed the idea from early on that your own interests and personality were worthy of existence, you became a mini-mom.
The Practice
So, how do you not end up lost in another person? You practice being your own person again and again and again. That means you might have to fight for your identity’s right to exist. A lot of people don’t want to fight, they don’t like confrontation. But the price of not standing up for who you are is losing yourself. Is that worth it?
Practicing being who you are with grace and confidence is not the same as doing so with an angry chip on your shoulder though. Communicating honestly, responding calmly, but continuing to do what it is you know you are meant to do, in spite of pressure, is the key.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote is anonymous
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 9, 2013 | Don Marquis, Mr. Xperience Says - 2013 |
Last time Mr. Xperience gave you essential advice about sex. Today, he is guiding you in your child rearing. He just wants to help.
My mother told I did this many times on the changing table. She also said more than once she did not block it effectively. I probably should have apologized to her for that.
Moms, has this happened to you? Men, don’t wait to be told this story by your mother. Go apologize to her for peeing so rudely. And now that you have control of your limbs and bladder, lift the seat up before and put it down after.
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This public service announcement provided by Mr. Xperience
Quote by Don Marquis, 1878-1937, American writer
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 6, 2013 | Mr. Xperience Says - 2013, Yvonne Fulbright |
I am starting a new series today called ‘Mr. Xperience Says’. Some lessons and warnings we can hear again and again but it doesn’t take hold until Mr. Xperience tells it to us. They aren’t lesson I in particular learned via Mr. Xperience. Some I did learn that way, others I haven’t had to deal with but I know many close friends who have. Mr. Xperience is a busy man. Ms. Experience is too.
The Mistake
I have a number of friends who have done this, in spite of them being warned by friends and family that it was a bad idea. It wasn’t until Mr. Xperience told them that they really understood how bad an idea it was. It’s amazing how many people only pay attention to Mr. Xperience. It’s even MORE amazing to realize there are some people who never listen to Mr. Xperience and as a result make this and other mistakes again and again. Those people are hard to watch live life. It’s one thing to give advice, see it ignored but then see Mr. Xperience give the advice and it being learned. That is frustrating but at least you know the finally listened to the advice. But when they don’t even listen to Mr. Xperience, that is torture to watch.
My Xperience
I never had sex with my ex. Well, I did before she was my ex, but actually we slept in separate rooms for almost a year before she moved out so we weren’t having sex well before she was my ex, and that just logically continued afterwards. It’s not that we didn’t have the opportunity after she moved out since she had her own house, I had mine. But she wasn’t about to let that happen and I moved on relatively quickly as well.
Tucson
Many years later we spent 5 days alone together in Tucson, Arizona. We had gone there to talk to one of our daughters and try to persuade her into coming home with one of us. We did see her the first day but she got scared off by what turned out to be wrong tactics on our part and didn’t show up the next day for our expected conversation about things. We hung around for a number of days hoping she would show up, talking to her friends and landlord, but she never did. In the meanwhile we spent every day together, driving here and there, eating meals, waiting in this one cafe. We got along pretty well, with only one small tiff, and it was pretty much a version of some of the tiffs we had had during our marriage about child rearing. Not a huge fight or anything, just a difference of opinion.
Reassurance
We also stayed in the same hotel, about 3 doors down from each other. This scenario of course led to a bit of anxiety on my wife Linda’s part. She wasn’t really worried about anything happening between us, but at the same time, if something were ripe to happen, this situation was definitely letting it happen way to easily. So, she had some worries. Each night I called her and reassured her of the truth. The truth was, 1 – I loved her, not my ex. 2 – I didn’t want to have sex with my ex. 3 – she didn’t want to have sex with me, either. This made her feel better. I was very happy to have married a woman who trusted me in that situation.
My ex was (and still is) in a relationship herself. I wasn’t privy to her conversations with her boyfriend, obviously, but it would not surprise me if he had some of the same worries. I might be wrong, she could have spent years railing against me, talking about how much she loathed me, but I never got the impression she did. At the same time, she did divorce me and she never showed any interest in the possibility of getting back together in any way, sexual or otherwise. I don’t know her boyfriend’s personality though, besides him being a nice guy, so I don’t know what their mutual worries or thoughts were about it. Whatever the case, we both spent the days as caring co-parents to our daughter, not as ex-lovers yearning but denying ourselves sex with each other. I am glad of that.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Yvonne K Fulbright (and many others)
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 5, 2013 | Darien - 2013, Travel Napkins |
The Flight Home
I spent 9 days on the east coast, going to my HS reunion, visiting my sister, an artist friend and my daughter Rebekah and my first Grandbaby, Vivian. But alas, I eventually had to head back to Tulsa. I was excited to see Linda again, it had been a long trip, but I was very sad to say goodbye to Rebekah and Vin. I spent the hours on my flight home drawing.
The Executive
I got into a conversation with the woman across the aisle as we both sat down but I was on the window seat and when my row partner sat on the aisle, the conversation pretty much stopped. Later the woman on the aisle was trying to sleep and wasn’t having a very easy time of it so I traded places with her so she could lean her head against the interior of the plane. By that time the woman across the aisle, Catherine, was reading so I picked up my sketchbook and started to draw her. I captured her face first, then her hands as quickly as I could since I know they were the most likely part of her to change at any moment, which they did. She brought out her laptop and at that point I started drawing the background.
The entire cabin was dark and the light from her screen lit her face in a beautiful way. I wish I had taken a photo so I could remember the lighting pattern now. We started talking again after a while and I found out she was coming to Tulsa for just one day for work. She was an executive with a large software developer and had a series of meetings starting early the next morning. She was tired after a while and laid her head back to sleep.
This is the drawing before I painted and colored it.
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The Flight Attendant
After my aisle mate started napping I noticed the flight attendant sitting in the jump seat straight ahead. She was in the dark, with one single overhead light above her, and some light from the galley on her left. She was looking right at me so I mouthed the words, ‘I am drawing you.’ and she responded with a smile and a thumbs up.
She sat still for almost the entire time I was drawing. There wasn’t anything going on in the cabin, almost everyone was asleep or at least had their eyes closed. She could have easily changed her arm position, crossed her legs differently or adjusted her clothing or hair, but she did none of that. She just sat still and looked straight ahead. Once in a while she would look at me and I would mouth the words for wherever I was at, ‘I am drawing your legs now.’ or “I finished your dress.” I knew she couldn’t hear me since I was actually making no audible sound, but it was obvious she knew what it was I was saying. She sat that way for probably 20-25 minutes, long enough for me to get a thorough line drawing done.
She had to explain her stillness to her fellow flight attendant at one point, and the other flight attendant came over to see how the drawing was progressing. She thought it looked pretty good and gave Jessica the thumbs up. That made her smile. It was very cool and otherworldly to do the drawing almost in complete darkness, almost like a special bond formed between us as a result. I showed her the line drawing after and she was very happy with it. She introduced herself as Jess and we exchanged contact info so I could get the finished drawing to her. Here is the line drawing before I painted and colored it.
And with that we landed, the lights came up and I was able to be greeted by my lovely wife at the airport. It was a wonderful journey meeting old friends, new family, and strangers who became friends.
I love traveling into the past and finding the present.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
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