Textures
February 8, 2022
I’ve been going on some long walks lately. I am about a 15 minute walk from an entrance to Eno River State Park. I’ve never known a park as well as I do the Eno. I used to try and choose a favorite spot until I finally gave up. There’s no need to pick a favorite place in my favorite place.
A handful of days back I was walking up to favorite spot. The sun is getting closer to setting and at the top of the little hill I’m walking up there is a field with tall, yellow grass. By the time I make it out of these trees it will be absolutely ablaze. It’s my golden place. If you know me anywhere from medium to well-done you know there are few things that make me swoon more than a good display of gold— in a painting, described in a poem, in jewelry, a dress, a trinket on someones nails…
Then John Green finishes the Postscript of The Anthropocene Reviewed. Immediately the pain-in-the-ass voice that so often plagues my thoughts demands to know “what should you do next?” It’s not an open ended question welcoming a whole world of possible choices. Instead this voice is asking a very specific question. I get all twisted inside trying to resist the rising, delusional belief that there is a one “right” thing that I should be doing for every moment. The “right” thing to do is start a new audio book right away so that I can continue the practice of tracking my walks, for my health, for motivation, for consistency. The best thing to do is take out my earbud and just be in nature for the sake of a quiet soul, a meditative mind, a resistance to all the noise of life centered around entertainment, emails, ambition, and for the sake of “the good ol’ days before technology ran and corrupted everyone’s lives, etc.”
What I really want is to listen to a very specific artist. I immediately try and justify to myself why it is the “right” next move. It’s important for the growth of my character and craft to tune into what other artists are doing and continue to learn how to listen alongside my own practices of creating. I am an artist after all! But I’m not very good at keeping secrets from myself so it’s all for naught. I am craving something and it’s that simple. With a twinge of guilt I defy that lofty voice by doing what I want and not what is most efficacious to my character growth. She’s murmuring something about how I’m just another basic millennial that doesn’t know how to sit in quiet and a something else about entertainment culture and short attention spans.
A minute later I am continuing the slight ascent to the golden place with Morning Textures by Light of Woods playing in my right ear. And it’s just wonder and calm and warm water poured over my head. I manage to turn the volume on that pain-in-the-ass voice and my defensive responses down to 1 and indulge. When I get to the golden place it’s all… right. And I have a delicious time taking videos and photos of all the golden moments I can (with the fancy camera I have dragged along) until the sun disappears behind the trees. My algorithm tries to continue to play new music in the same vein. It is a complete failure. Nothing but Morning Textures will do. It was what felt right. Maybe it wasn’t the “right” decision maybe it was. But it fit just right regardless. I listened to Morning Texture Vol: 2 for at least another 45 minutes as I followed the sun’s lead and descended home again.
Yesterday I was walking in the woods listening to the next audio book Braiding Sweet Grass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and felt that same inner twisting coming over me again. It was a rainy day so I decided not to bring my big camera with me. But I couldn’t stop being drawn to the ground. The shiny mud and gravel, the fluffy or velvety, glowing, green moss, the various stages of floor leaves (mostly dry and raised, tampered and damp, flattened and soaked). I wanted so badly to pull out my phone and take pictures of every inch of the path and forest. The voice was very disapproving of this whole idea. Couldn’t I just enjoy what I saw without having to capture it? Why waste your phone memory with photos no one will ever be interested in seeing? Do you honestly think you’ll go back and look at these later? So, I kept my phone in my pocket and I continued through the woods until I found myself at another favorite spot.
Above is the first picture I took. It was the ground below the rock I was sitting on by the water.
And then another picture taken to my right of bigger rocks above smaller rocks beneath shallow water.
After a few rain drops stained my pants I began walking back happier than I had been on the walk in. I stopped as often as I wanted and soaked in all the mud and moss and leaves…. all the bark and stones. It was a sopping mess and I was loving it all.
This time I stopped to capture the shiny mud and gravel, the fluffy or velvety, glowing green moss. Each snap felt like a relief and an indulgence.
Above is the first picture I took. It was the ground below the rock I was sitting on by the water.
And then another picture taken to my right of bigger rocks above smaller rocks beneath shallow water.
After a few rain drops stained my pants I began walking back happier than I had been on the walk in. I stopped as often as I wanted and soaked in all the mud and moss and leaves…. all the bark and stones. It was a sopping mess and I was loving it all.
This time I stopped to capture the shiny mud and gravel, the fluffy or velvety, glowing green moss. Each snap felt like a relief and an indulgence.
I found my various stages of floor leaves. The mostly dry, the raised, the tamped and damp, the flattened and soaked and the plain muddy.
And right outside my house, as the walk was minutes from ending I looked up and framed the textured sky in all it’s gloomy glory.
Later reflecting on this whole experience I did a quick search for the definition of texture:
Noun: the feel, appearance, or consistency of a surface or substance.
Verb: give (something) a rough or uneven texture.
And that’s exactly it! I was constantly harassed by the pressure to dig deep beneath the surface of each action. What does it mean to X? But my surface reaction is just me being present to that particular moment and sensation. Before the analysis, the meaning making, the interpretation I get the gift of simply indulging in the feel, appearance and consistency of what is before it gets used for anything else. I just get to indulge in the rough and unevenness of the thing before making the choice to perhaps smooth and polish it into something else more than that first reaction. I think the work of an artist is often to craft an interpretation, frame, lens, feeling, message etc. out of what we experience around us. I also think playful, indulgent and simple reactions to the world around us— before the intentional crafting begins— seems like a great place to start.
There are too many photos to share. I won’t push it any farther.
I defied that little/big voice in my head telling me that every moment must be full of the most profound version of itself. In doing so I literally walked into the texture of sound and image I was craving. And what’s more, I made meaning out of it all the same. I don’t want to miss out on the beautiful moments in life, the inspired steps and sounds, by obsessively trying to find and/or create them.
I’m a little over a week into the release of my EP For Now. That release was the biggest indulgence I’ve made in a long while. It was a calling-your-bluff, puffed up chest, “I will not be controlled!” assertion against the nagging voice that tries to dictate so many of my moments. Some of the recordings are so poppy I can imagine a certain breed of human will/would refuse to listen to them and perhaps anything else on the EP. The levels aren’t perfect (at least on the three tracks I was in charge of). But I am proud of my work. I like listening to them and know at least a few folks who enjoy them as well. It doesn’t need to have been the “right” decision (and obviously wasn’t the most professional) to fit just right for me here and now.
Thank you Light of Woods for the right textures on that walk up the hill and for being the little spark that ignited the subsequent frenzied and delightful iPhone photo shoot. Thank you gloomy, overcast, drizzly day for the mud and diffuse light that made the moss glow and with which I was able to capture those little framed moments. And gratitude to myself for indulging even though that voice in my head pushed to work when it was time to play.
Until Soon,
Remona Jeannine
P.S. Find more music from the artist behind Light of Woods, Michael Grigoni, here and here.
P.P.S. If you’d like to download or stream my New EP For Now but aren’t in a position to purchase or use a streaming service please email info@remonajeannine.com and I’ll get you a code to download/stream for free on Bandcamp.