Almost done despite despair; looking toward the music again

I think I made reference before – when I started this blog – to the fact that I’m trying to focus more on creativity in order to help uproot what’s been a growing sense of intense unhappiness. This was, in fact, precipitated by specific events, most noticeably being laid off from my day job and experiencing a significant loss of relationship. Well, I received word the other day that yet another person on whom I have long depended, and whom I have long cherished, is about to relocate in a matter of weeks. I might still be able to keep in contact with her across the distance but the relationship will be completely different.  She’s been my massage therapist for four and a half years; her touch was what finally motivated me to take seriously my formerly idle daydreams of working as a massage therapist, and thus actually get myself a worthwhile career.  She’s been a mentor and a crucial healing influence in my life…and now a little more of the stability I so badly needed is gone. So when I found out, I did what any sane person would do…I bought fabric paint. It took me a good two days to unpack it and do anything with it but I finally managed to.

The marotte now has gently happy eyes and eyebrows to complement his uproarious laugh. I’ve also found that as the stuffing has settled a bit inside the handle, which is also soft-sculpture, the marotte has taken on a look of throwing his head back laughing – a pleasant little surprise. I have to wait until the last of the scarves I ordered comes in so that I can put them under the collar, but I think I even know approximately how I’ll be arranging those. I’ll be watching my mailbox closely this week.

As usual I didn’t even get especially close to finishing up the “have to” side of my daily to-do list today. My cabin is still an absolute wreck and I haven’t even put away the laundry that I did on Friday. The hand wash still sits waiting to be done, the Christmas shopping is no further along than yesterday, and the documentation for my own fledgling business is still needing updates. Nevertheless, the day is almost gone, so one way or the other it’s time to look at the more inherently satisfying side of the to-do list. I haven’t picked up my guitar in a week and a half, so someone suggested that I set my sights on revisiting a local open stage this week which I previously very much enjoyed. I think she’s on the right track. So, off I go to practice guitar and work up a set list.

Okay, then sew a few more seams…

There was an odd undercurrent of stress running through my mostly pleasant (if typically overproductive) day. There were plenty of things to do during the day and plenty more to do after I got home…which is a shame considering how much later I got home than I’d planned.

Needless to say, my guitar still hasn’t been touched…and if you’re reading at all actively you could probably tell by the title that I decided to salvage the creative side of the day by sewing.

The marotte is coming along beautifully and very, very swiftly now. The handle is completed, the secret element I mentioned has been added, and I’ve decided on a look and a material for the eyes and eyebrows. All that’s left is to obtain some fabric paint, put the eyes and eyebrows on, and affix the scarves once the other two arrive in the mail. I’m happy with that.

If you can’t wail, at least sew a seam…

Once again, the day and the evening alike passed in a haze of nonstop work and errands.  I had a few minutes left to devote to something.  Starting work (or resuming work) on anything musical would only tempt me to stay up entirely too late – more so.  Ah, but perhaps it’s time to put a few more prayerful stitches into the marotte?

Its collar is now sewn on, and I’ve begun on the handle.  Next, I need to complete the handle, add eyes and eyebrows, and wait for the rest of the silk scarves I ordered to come for the finishing touch.  And there is one further element I want to remember to add…but it is a secret, properly only for the maker of the marotte, its recipient, and those the recipient may see fit to share it with.  Indeed, the recipient may not even discover it himself for a while.  Subtle, hidden touches just transform worlds…

One not-so-little gesture

I was so busy today – first sleeping until noon to catch up on two days’ sleep deprivation, and then working like a madwoman all day today – that NOTHING on the “want-to” side of my to-do list happened all day. I sent out job application materials, made a sign for an upcoming promotion, all kinds of things…but not one purely fun thing happened all day. Even while I was on the phone with a friend I was supervising my computer as it did its typical cockeyed printing jobs.

I looked at my to-do list a few minutes ago (it’s now almost 2am here) and said, “is there ANYTHING I can do to salvage my Saturday? To say that I got closer to something I want to do just for my own enjoyment somehow, in some concrete way?”

So I took the big plunge and ordered a CBR (computer-based recording) software package. Do I have the money for this? No. Will I ever have the money for this? Eventually but by then I’ll have missed out on a lot of opportunities to learn and use my creativity, and with all the hard work I’m doing I need to balance it with some industrial-strength play. Soon I will enter the 21st century as a recording artist – no more will I be dependent on the multitracker I got in high school to produce a recording, and no longer will I be restricted to a maximum of seven tracks on a song…the flexibility will be pretty amazing from what I understand. I’m looking forward to it.

Pearl Jam and black jeans

Part of the reason for my push to focus on creativity these days is to rocket my posterior out of the blahs and into a more enjoyable, productive mode of living.  In truth, the blahs were more than simple blahs; I’ve been recovering recently from multiple significant losses.  I lost both a day job and something else that’s hard to define; I suppose you could call it the end of an era.  Both losses, however, shut me down in very critical areas of life, and re-emerging in those areas means a sort of rebirth, which is most certainly a creative act; sometimes a bit like composing a crucial leitmotif while walking the high wire.

Tomorrow I go on yet another job interview; two, depending on how you define “interview.”  (One is basically me responding to someone’s informal suggestion that I come to her massage studio and have a look around and talk with her when I have a few moments downtown.)  All this is happening on a day when I’m going to get oiled up doing another lomilomi (Hawaiian sacred bodywork) practice session…and you know, this is simply my life.  It occurred to me, yes, I could take along my customary dress slacks and  silk blouse to change into after doing the bodywork session, but half the reason I applied for the job in question is because the people there sound as if they’re very much like me; it’s a coop specializing in sustainable transportation and helping people live off the grid, and I can scarcely imagine that they’re all wandering around wearing Gucci pumps and Coach ascots.  And so, I thought, might it be acceptable to simply show the more ornate side of my customary casual look?  Why not wear something that looks like me?  Why not pair my new favorite purple silk brocade top with my purple suede shirt/jacket?  And while we’re going a bit on the rugged side with suede, why not wear my very nice new black jeans?

A voice in my head is telling me I have finally lost my mind.  “You’re going to wear jeans to a job interview?  WHAT???”

But another voice popped in.  “This is not the kind of place that pays big bucks.  The only reason to even consider working for a place like this is to be yourself, doing work that matters, dealing with other people who also live in the real world.  If they would seriously look at the fabric of which my pants are made with a more critical eye than the substance of my resume and interview, that’s the first sign I don’t belong there.  And for all I know, they might feel a little intimidated or alienated if I came in dressed to the nines; do they, after all, have anything in common with someone who might possibly be that into appearances?”  Yes, the only reason to take a job like we’ll be discussing would be to be myself and deal with reality; they might as well see the real me from day one so that there aren’t any extraneous illusions to cut through later.

Meanwhile I even find scrounging up these comparatively comfortable and festive clothes fairly blah…I just don’t enjoy the whole wardrobe “thing” the way I did in earlier periods of my life…and so I decided I needed some musical inspiration.  It came to me that I hadn’t listened to a Pearl Jam CD in a while; I’ve listened to the few tunes I’ve uploaded to iTunes, but that’s less than fifteen songs in all and it’s not the same experience.  So I popped Dissident into the CD drive.

…What are these tears in my eyes?…Oh, this is why I haven’t listened to the CDs in at least a few weeks…they remind me of times I miss.  Times I consider happier than the current one…going to Hawai’i…taking on my new name…dancing with one of my best friends, who’s gone through such changes that I nearly fear he might be hard to recognize before much longer…performing at a music venue which, a few months later, doesn’t even exist anymore…

I’ve held off on a lot of things since the final curtain of that era in my life came crashing down one chilly Saturday morning.  They’re basic things; the music I love…dancing…the path of growth around my femininity…just letting myself feel good without holding back for fear of loss.  So what, then, is the creative way to walk back onto the stage when the act you most loved playing a part in has finally come to a close?  I don’t know…but I think even if I can never listen to Ten without crying again, I’ll still turn it on.

A touch of silk

Well, I’ve got the collar tacked onto the marotte now and I’m realizing that the points aren’t going to have nearly the draping effect I’d envisioned. This is fine but I want to do something to achieve that effect, so I started thinking of something I could just put billowy little mounds of underneath the collar…ribbons? More cotton? No…it needs to be something a little floaty and translucent for contrast; there’s enough solid stuff on this item already that…ah!!! Silk scarves.

Thanks to the miracle of eBay, finding affordable silk pocket squares is not at all hard…except for one small thing. The dominant colors in this piece are blue, yellow, and orange. Blue pocket squares abound. Yellow pocket squares don’t abound but are nevertheless easy to locate. Orange pocket squares, however…no.

And so I found myself crawling eBay at 11:30pm when I should really have been moving on to other tasks and topics, trying to come up with the right search terms…I even left eBay (gasp!) to do some shopping elsewhere on the web, only to find that while yes, one could in fact find orange pocket squares, either the shipping cost three times as much as the scarf, or the squares themselves cost more than the rest of the materials for the project combined.

I eventually found that the cheapest way out that still yielded an appropriate result was to buy an amazingly bright necktie and pocket square set on eBay. The pocket square, being translucent, has a nice strong color that will be perfect for my project, but I had to laugh when I realized a tie existed in the solid version of that color. I mean, if you wore such a thing in public you would be blinding everyone who crossed your path! I have no idea what to do with the necktie, except for maybe keeping it in my car as a substitute for emergency flares, but anyway that isn’t the point – I scored a good strong orange pocket square, and even with the tie it was half the price of getting it alone anywhere else online.

So my next steps, then, are to finish attaching the collar, make the handle, add eyes and eyebrows to this bad boy, and, when the scarves all arrive, attach them to the underside of the collar.

Sew very exciting…

…yes, I’m a purveyor of the occasional bad pun. Too much time around professors in my formative years – what can I say? But I digress…

My creative obsession du jour is a sewing project. If you think this sounds drab or folksy or entirely too domestic for your taste, fear not; textile arts are scarcely limited to the making of the perfect dress or the best quilt in town. The project I’m working on is about as weird as anything ever made with a needle and thread – a soft sculpture marotte.

Scratching your head? There’s a reason for that. Even Wikipedia has little to say about the marotte at current, but while you may not know the word, you are probably familiar with the item to which it refers:

A Marotte is a prop stick or scepter with a carved head on it. The word is borrowed from the French, where it signifies either a fool’s (literal) bauble, or a fad/craze.

Typically carried by a jester or harlequin, the miniature head will often reflect the costume of the jester who carries it. Modern marottes typically have music boxes or other machinery built into the head. Older marottes may utilize swivel heads with bells.

-Wikipedia, copied November 14, 2007

You may wonder, then, why a massage therapist/musician/etc. is at all interested in crafting such a thing. One of my close friends is a stand-up comedian, and very much an incarnation of the archetypal wise fool; like the court jesters of old, he is not merely a source of entertainment fit for a king, but also an informant and adviser to those wise enough to look beyond the comic facade and see what he’s actually conveying. He also shares a challenge with the medieval jester, which is that his wisdom is not always welcomed with open arms. He may in fact hear someone exclaim “off with his head!!!” at the exact moment he’s sharing the most valuable information of his life to someone who needs it desperately. That’s where the marotte comes in.

According to legend, if the fool had a marotte, he also had a potentially lifesaving “out.” If the king was throwing a murderous enough fit, the jester could always say, “but your majesty, you mustn’t blame me – the marotte said it!” And indeed, the marotte would lose its head rather than the jester, turning a fatal sentence into a mere woodworking repair project. You can see where this is a fine potential totem for protection of a modern-day comedian. My friend has a warm heart and seeks to harm no one, but his surgically sharp eye for the more ridiculous aspects of human behavior is bound to get him in trouble with the less secure members of our species at times.

Not being a woodworker, I had to seek an alternate means of marotte-making, and I chose soft sculpture. I began in February with no pattern of any kind; just an idea of what I wanted the end result to look like. Since then I’ve spent quite a few hours cutting and stitching, but I’ve spent far more time with the partially-done puppet sitting in a bag with the remaining raw materials. Part of it is just the result of a busy life and being distracted, but part is having to think of solutions to challenges as they arise. The marotte’s face features an uproarious laugh with a mouthful of monarch butterflies, but I let the project sit fallow for almost two months as I was stupefied as to how I could maintain the shape of the lower lip when the bottom of the head was stuffed. Finally I was up entirely too late last night and the answer came to me from nowhere. Cut a section from a plastic cup and sew it inside the lower lip of the marotte to hold its shape.

Never one to resist a burst of creative inspiration (or hold to a reasonable bedtime), I immediately went to the kitchen cabinet and sacrificed a dollar store tumbler for the noble task. Though even I knew it was too late at night to actually thread a needle and commence sewing, I set the plastic arch inside the marotte for a dry run…perfect. I sewed it in this morning and am now busily planning the making of the marotte’s pointed collar. Then will come the handle, followed by eyes and eyebrows on the face – one last detail I’m not certain how to best execute yet.

Perhaps if I put the pedal to the metal and don’t encounter any more mental snags, I can have this ready as a Hanukkah gift for my friend, the stand-up comic. But shhhh, don’t tell him – it’s a surprise! (Blogging about this will doubtlessly encourage me to finish by Hanukkah, so as to minimize the chances that he’ll run across this new blog before I have a chance to present the result of the process to him.)

Welcome

…to my new blog.  My name is Lanakila Iesu, and I’m a massage therapist, musician, writer, and all-around good gal to know, living in San Lorenzo Valley, California (think Santa Cruz mountains).

I’m a little bit practical and a little bit kooky…a little bit balanced and a little bit extreme…but all of it is ultimately in the interest of creativity.  I’ve maintained other blogs pertaining to different topics, but this blog is my way of sharing and celebrating what’s going on for me as a creative person, so that whoever is interested can pop the hood, peer into my cranium, and see just what I’m up to now.

You’re most likely to enjoy reading this blog if you’re generally interested in exploring the meaning and process of creativity.  It’s not specifically a blog about any one form of creative expression; I plan to write about my primary modes of expression but also roads that are, for me, less traveled by.  Some days it will be music or writing, but other days the topic at hand might be creating a heart-centered business, sewing a soft-sculpture marotte, or simply approaching life’s challenges in ways that I haven’t previously tried.

So if this sounds like something you’d like to hear about, kick back, pour yourself a banana smoothie (or other drink of choice), and enjoy…and if I don’t write often enough for you, write me and give me a little nudge.  It might mean I’m being so creative that I’m forgetting to write…or it might mean I’m losing sight of my creative focus and desperately need a little poke in the right direction!