On: Magic in The City and the Current Reading List

While specific books and I have certain and often complex relationships that I won't get into now, with Books in general I've noticed a sort of cycle. It starts with a twinge, perhaps after reading a review, or seeing the same book a few times - a sort of slight ping in my mind, a switch being pressed that says: "Why aren't you reading!?" Then, I move on and get busy and weeks will go by, but all the while, I will begin to crave reading. It will be a source of anxiety of sorts, of me being silly and not making time for what I want most.

Finally, I'll make way to The Library and spend a few happy hours browsing, looking, being lost, being frustrated, wondering why I'd waited so long - and come home to at least  half dozen tomes that could be anything and wonder how I'll have the time to read half of my haul. I then read one book, or two at once, get enthralled or get bored, pick up another, or ignore them all and rack up fines and finally return them. Then, a few weeks will go by and the same will start all over.

It's a bit of a silly pattern, but I followed it even while living in Columbus, just an alley away from the Main Library there, which, to this day remains as one of my favorite places on Earth. Whoever runs that ship sure know what they're doing and it's something that's truly lacking in Chicago's 100 times larger system.

But. Something that I didn't have in Columbus was something I find ever-present here in Chicago. It's not a thing or place and it's not even anything I can describe in concrete terms. It is more of a sensation and a consistent, persistent thought, like some great inside joke about to be told that only a portion of the city is directly aware of that nonetheless affects and impacts the city each and every day, if only you let it. It may be silly, but the only word I have for it is magic.

Of course, it's not unicorns or bolts of thunder. It's not even anything terribly interesting, but there are a lot of coincidences that happen here all the time. It's getting on the train with absolute strangers and then, on your commute back, seeing the very same people, several days in a row, all at wildly different times. It's thinking about how to contact someone and then having that person get in touch. It's thinking, "Oh, I wonder if that book that finished the trilogy that I started ever got written?" - and it being the first thing you see when going to the library for the first time in months, which of course happened to me last weekend, with the book you see above that I am now reading and very much enjoying. These things are all minor, and I wouldn't think to comment on any of them, unless they happened all the time, constantly and consistently.

If that's just part of living here, then I am all for it. It's odd, bizarre and sometimes startling, but it's part of the wonderful vibrancy that brought me here is allowing me to now thrive.

Back to Drawing

For any and every other illustrator, drawing, in some form, is a natural, expected thing that you do all the time, that is a simple requisite of your profession. For me, it's not so simple and drawing and I have this Lifetime-movie of a relationship, where drawing is my high school sweetheart, but I'm the one who makes a terrible mess, leaves dramatically, swears to never come back, but at the end returns humbled, with a Faith Hill song playing over the credits. This is how it was all through college for me, but now we're back together and although the credits may not roll any time soon, I have pages and pages of drawings for the first time in years and just maybe, I can call myself an illustrator again.

~V

Chicago

This friday, I and some friends plan to spend a day and a half in Chicago. Not nearly enough time in one of my favorite cities. Why I favor it so, really, is beyond me. Not having lived there and only having visited twice, it is perhaps because each time I visit is a celebration, time spent with good friends and a dear aunt and a feast of art, culture and time spent in a vibrant, alien place. It's just too damn cold.

This will be the warmest time I've ever visited the Second City and I hope the weather will be kind. I plan to visit my aunt, see the museum and be gone in time to start the next work week.

Speaking of work. I am sorely lacking in this department, but it is not so simple as me being underemployed and I haven't really the words to voice just what it that has come over me. Have I changed, have I stalled - I do not know, but I become more and more upset each day. With myself, with my shortcomings, with my sudden lack of will and drive and movement. Excuses. I am lazy and, having been so suddenly dropped off from my illusion of decent work, I now don't have that cover and must actually roll up my sleeves and work. Can I do it? Of course, but how?

So I am going to Chicago. I do not intend to give the trip a lot of importance, but a change of pace is sorely wanted. My life needs to start now, to pick up. I need to go places, to meet people, to start something. I dally. With my future and my career, no less. I work to earn money but I am near content with the easy, mindless, labor and am near satisfied to not want anything more. But that is not who I am. Ambition, drive and passion are there inside of me and when released, it is a beautiful feeling, a wave that carries me from one moment to the next. But I dally. I do not look, do not apply myself, do not make myself known. Time is an excuse, but like all things, time can be made and the excuse is wearing thin.

It is hubris, though. How proud I was and how stubborn. I thought myself better, smarter and better positioned than my classmates and peers and now this. But I still have so much and have all my faculties to regain my footing. It will happen, what I need now is time.

New work, a new portfolio, a website and more connections are also in order. The furnace has grown cold and damp. Time to add fuel to the fire and let loose the fiery beast. Stupid analogy, but now more than ever I see myself as a great machine, idling, while the world moves ahead.

Another Dream

My dreams continue to astound me. Last night, not only was I back home in Colorado, but I happened to be watching Gloria Estefan's dog, who pooped all over the office as she came to get it.
...
What the what!? Why do I dream about celebrities about whom I care so little? Sandra Bullock, Celine Deon, and now Gloria Estefan. It is amusing, sure, but oh so bizarre.

Oh well, life...

A Dream

I rarely ever remember my dreams. Though I know I dream often, they melt from my memory with the slightest hint of sun, leaving only cold sweat and the puzzling sensation of having just been somewhere else. But sometimes the dream is too unforgettable and lingers long enough for me to jot it down as I now always do when the occasion arises. And the dreams I remember are generally worth remembering. There was me being knighted by Sandra Bullock as the Queen of England, or me praying in a pew next to a mullet-ed Celine Deon. Or even my hard drive being stolen and tearfully returned by a secretary named Lakisha.

This one beats them all.

In this dream I am myself, but am some sort of water spirit/magician and appear from the seas with a companion with whom I have traveled to the end of the world to see an old friend. I bring her a small trinket - a light blue glazed ceramic starfish. We finally reach this friend, who lives in a dead tree trunk that rises right from the water and into which a home was built. My companion leaves and she opens the door and I am surprised to find she has become blind, and has her eyes wrapped, but I say nothing and hand her the starfish, which she takes and places on a shelf next to a pile of similar trinkets I've brought her over the years. In front of this woman, whom I can not place, I feel secure but nostalgic, and so sad about the passage of time. We talk and she asks I retrieve a book she recently tossed out. I agree and lay back and will the water to move me. I travel to a sea side city - with a brick promenade with white stars. I and the wave that carries me simply wash over these people but they pay no heed. I swim and eventually find the book - it is some sort of a simple crossword of arithmetic book, the kind you buy at gas stations for long trips. I bring it to her and promise to read it to her. Just then, she starts telling me how she lost her sight and I wake.

What I remember most vividly is the sensation of me being carried in the wave. So peaceful and serene, I could will it to move anywhere. In fact, I may have been sleeping while doing so. How interesting.

I can't say I know what this means, if anything, other than a product of an imaginative imagination. If nothing else, it's a pleasant treat.

The Woman on the Bus

There was this woman on the bus. She had her son with her who was no more than six. Her skin was the color of brown silk - perfectly smooth, matte, unblemished and her eyes were like thin almonds, as though squinting, they tapered at each end and were accentuated with the most beautiful pair of folds at their ends that made them seem twice as long and gave her face a sense of endless serenity and wisdom. Her lips were full, sensual, accentuated by the slight protrusion of her jaws and her cheekbones were plump, sitting high under her eyes. She was beautiful.

With her hair covered by a simple black rag tied into a knot in the back, she wore a plain white collared shirt that must've been two sizes two big and grey sweatpants and by any white standard she was overweight. With no jewelry save a three stone band and no makeup, save lipgloss, she was still beautiful.

Even if dozens of generations removed, I had the image of this woman dressed in vivid kente cloth that may have been the uniform of her ancestors. I saw her belonging more elsewhere, than here, in Columbus, riding the bus with me and dozens others and her son.

"You gotta eat vegetables to be strong." she told him "Don't you want to be strong?" she asked and struck a bodybuilding pose. "Nuh-uh" was his expected bratty response to which she laughed, pulled him close and kissed him on the forehead. Such a simple exchange, but one that had the full potential of melting glaciers, steel and any other thing in sight. The warmth was palpable and the amount of love pouring out of this woman was overwhelming. Now, to remove an eyelash from her eye she closed her eyes, leaned forward and had him pull open her lids slightly and blow right on it. Not producing the desired effect, she laughed again, rubbing her eye, saying "You're supposed to get it out, not blow it back in!" She had him do it again, more gently. "There you go." Another hug, another kiss.

I could not help but think of myself with my mother when I was that age. We rode the bus back then too - could we have had a similar exchange? In a different place, and time, with different words, but with the same emotions. The thought was almost overwhelming.

RAMA

Today has been a terribly exciting day.

The RAMA event I have been anxiously waiting for finally arrived, and it was great. I had the chance to have my work reviewed by Jeff Tritt, executive vice-president of Leo Burnett. He is very high up in the food chain, and my work very much impressed him, and that was a pleasure. Truly a boost of confidence that only means I need to push harder, and work more towards reaching success. The interview and the talks gave me great leverage with which to enter the design and retail business and I am thrilled.