The other day I was painting the walls in the basement, lost in a never-ending playlist of Tori Amos songs. I’m not sure what it is about painting that I enjoy so much. Perhaps it’s the repetition of movement, the concentration that allows the mind to drift along. Captain Awesome prefers watering the lawn, and by hand. Two totally different activities yet they yield similar results. It’s easy to get lost in one’s thoughts. Half listening. Half thinking. The mind turns over and over like a tumbleweed recanting the day, conversations, what needs to get done… And somehow in the midst of it, one slips into a trance. A wandering reverie.

While in college, I went through a spell of insomnia. Sleep felt like a distant memory; I couldn’t even fall asleep in class! When I discovered the prescribed medication helped me sleep but deprived me of recalling the previous evening events, I decided it was time to try something else. At that time, I started working more with mixed media and found a way to re-purpose some of my test photography prints for abstract collages. I took the time to cut 1/2″ squares out a of an 8×10 sheet of photo paper, then glued each one down onto an 18″ squared piece of masonite. It took one hour to lay down two and half rows of squares. I would sit and do this for hours, letting my mind aimlessly wander through the sea of happenings in my head. Miraculously, the Sand Man became less and less elusive; sleep was no longer an issue. The series consisted of more than 20 pieces, thousands of hours of work. I called them the Stream of Consciousness Series. It was a gift to myself…a return to normalcy.

There’s something about that time, whether quiet or with whatever humming noise or playlists takes up audible space. Being left to one’s own thoughts drowns out the sound and sets the stage for conversations with the self and with the universe. Like dreams, I solve problems in this space. Determine what needs to be said, or not said. How to go about an obstacle. How to let go. How to accept. Sometimes the universe answers questions easily like a river flowing down stream. Other times, the solution is placed delicately in my head as if it was there all along. It’s in these moments that I feel connected to something greater than myself. Intuition takes to the driver seat while I gladly ride shotgun. I find myself singing along to Spring Haze and then hear the first three notes of Edge of the Moon in my head before my playlist, on shuffle, advances to the next song.

We conquered many things this past weekend, but my favorite part was quietly painting the basement alone with my thoughts.

With the universe…and Tori Amos.