Creativity – Page 2 – Thinker Boy: Blog & Art

Building Bridges

building bridges

I met my wife, Azza, when I was employed by the American University in Cairo as an Instructor in the Department of Rhetoric and Composition, a position I held for seven years.

When Azza and I started going out, she owned a successful catering and food vending business in Cairo. She’d been trained by an Italian chef named Samantha. As soon as Azza became proficient in the kitchen, the two of them started making money together, and eventually Azza went “rogue,” breaking away from her mentor to open Azza’s Italian Kitchen, a one-woman operation that helped her earn some really good dough.

In 2015, I left Egypt, bringing Azza with me to the United States. After a month or so of looking for work, I landed a position in San Antonio, Texas, my birthplace and a city with a cool, international vibe.

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Less than a month ago, after scheming and dreaming and filling out scads of paperwork, Azza opened up a home bakery—Zoozoo’s Sweet Treats (and More)—in accordance with the Cottage Food Industry laws of the state of Texas. During the intervening weeks, we have done a few events and have made a pretty good start to her little kitchen enterprise.

Last Saturday, we sold Azza’s baked goods at a first-Saturday-of-every-month farmer’s market that had sprouted up in the parking lot of Marbach Christian Church, located on Marbach Road in southwest San Antonio. We threw our tent up in the middle of a huddle of other tents and then covered a couple of tables with delicious, homemade edibles. Right next to us, Ayse, our Turkish friend and a neighbor, sold some of her paintings and a few lovely ceramics that had come over with her from Istanbul.

During the course of the day, the church’s pastor, a fifty-something fellow named Darnell with a greying beard, came over to welcome us to the market and then chat. He was a loquacious fellow with a bass laugh that came directly from his core. He told us about the halfway house—he pointed at it across the street—that his church was sponsoring. Then he told us about all the other initiatives—for instance, he acquired and repaired old bicycles for those in the area with no other form of transportation—he and his parishioners were involved in.

My wife and Ayse are both practitioners of Islam. Ayse quite conspicuously covers her hair with a hijab, so the pastor, quite surprisingly, greeted her with a “hamdullah,” an Arabic word that means “thank God.” A more appropriate greeting would have been “Salaam Ahlaykum,” but we were all thrilled that he’d even made the attempt and were surprised that he knew as much Arabic as he did.

When I told him that Azza was also Muslim but that she didn’t cover her hair, he seemed a touch baffled. “So why do Muslim women cover their hair anyway?” he wondered. Then he followed that up with, “And why does one woman choose to do so and another one not?”

We explained that it was all personal preference and that the idea that all Muslim women were required to wear the hijab was a misunderstanding of Islam and its precepts. It was an example of a misconception that many have about the religion.

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As you might guess from what I wrote earlier, Pastor Darnell is a busy man, so one thing and then another kept pulling him away from our tent; however, after tending to whatever needed looking after, he always came back to where we’d set up shop, and we eventually invited him to pull up a chair and spend the day with us which he ended up doing.

One of my favorite pastimes these past several years has been educating Americans about the Middle East—I lived in the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Egypt for about a decade and a half—and the predominant religion of the region. Given the current climate in America, where fear of “the other” is being used for political purposes, this pastime has become a vital mission.

After learning that I am a published writer and interested in the arts, Darnell started presenting ideas about projects he and I might collaborate on. For example, he wanted to know if I would like to help him organize poetry readings. For another, he asked me if I’d like to help him edit some of his writings.

All these ideas sounded interesting, but they prompted me to make a proposal of my own. I told him that I thought we ought to organize a kind of “mixer” that would bring Muslims and Christians together for the purpose of building interfaith bridges.

He liked the idea a lot and we exchanged telephone numbers. In my mind’s eye, I can even see Azza and I doing a little presentation on Arabs, Islam, and Muslims at his church.

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The idea of bringing people together during the Age of Trump excites me and fills me with hope. Speaking of hope, I think everyone should check this out as a way of becoming a bit more informed and enlightened.

Wrinkles

pexels-photo-479462

I have this just-out-of-bed ritual that I follow every morning. After successfully finding the floor with my feet, I begin making my way through my dark bedroom toward an unlit bathroom. My eyes have adjusted by the time I reach the threshold that separates the place where I sleep from the place where I clean myself. My hand knows exactly where the light switch is located without me needing to engage my eyes in the process of finding it.

My fingers touch the switch and I think, let there be light and then it comes, bright and jarring. After narrowing my eyes, I step toward the wall-mounted mirror, located above the large countertop and sinks, and look at myself for a few seconds, turning my face to the right and left as I do so. I also step toward the mirror and away from it to see myself from a variety of vantage points.

I try not to make any judgments about the face that looks back at me. I mostly take note and catalog my observations. I also try hard not to feel emotional about the version of Troy Headrick I happen to see on any given day. I wish to remain detached, as cool as a cucumber or as cold as scientist.

It doesn’t take an observational genius to understand that the Troy I see now is quite a bit different than the Troy I saw twenty, ten, or even five years ago. This is neither surprising nor disturbing. This is simply the way things are going with my face, the direction my looks are headed now that I am firmly ensconced in middle-age. I do not fear these changes or feel angry about them.

There is more grey hair, a bit more sag, especially above and below the eyes, and a general appearance of fatigue that expresses itself in a number of ways. These are all signs of deterioration and demise. Some mornings, when I’m feeling especially truthful and detached, I’ll whisper, “Troy, you know where you’re headed, don’t you? Your face is providing you with a road map.”

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This past weekend, for the first time in quite a long time, my wife and I visited with my cousin, her husband—a man who rarely speaks, but when he does open his mouth, something worth hearing is certain to come out—and their precocious but reserved ten-year-old son. We arranged to meet them in a Mexican food restaurant in the town where they live.

When I meet members of my extended family—I wish it happened more frequently than it does—I have this habit of blurting out that I’m older than I used to be (as if this fact wasn’t already perfectly clear). This past weekend, as could be expected, within five minutes of us sitting down together, I said something to the effect that I’ve aged a lot recently, and I immediately felt as if a burden had been lifted from my shoulders. It was the sort of liberating feeling one might experience when sharing a weighty secret that one had long kept to himself.

My cousin, an educated woman who works in healthcare, seemed older too. The 800-pound gorilla at our lunch table was the fact that we hadn’t seen each other for a while and now we were all taking stock, making mental notes, about all the ways each one of us had changed since our last get together.

After we’d ordered our drinks and were waiting for our meals to arrive, I launched into a mini-speech on how well my father seems to be aging. I based this on the fact that he refuses to slow down and never complains about any of his health challenges. Nor does he ever act as if he wants others to feel sorry for him. I went on to say that he has apparently made peace with the idea of his own demise and noted how he was able to talk, without looking even a touch morbid, about his own death. I put forward the hypothesis that the greatest challenge we face—this is especially true of Americans who have this unspoken belief that they are going to live forever and look beautiful in the process—is to become comfortable with our unrelenting decline.

Americans are a funny people. They are capable of uprooting themselves and moving on to new and different jobs and new and different places, but they have a lot more difficulty dealing with changes in their bodies and appearances. Many seem to view the ageing process as an affront, and they fight it, every step of the way, tooth and nail.

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I don’t mind physical changes near as much as I mind changes in my emotional well-being. I hate to see a waning in my overall sense of excitement about life. When I was a child, I woke up feeling as if each day was going to be a kind of epic adventure. I delighted in small discoveries, like the finding of an insect crawling across a stretch of concrete. The blueness of the sky was utterly astonishing and could fill me with giddiness. Tying a kite to a string and then sending it five hundred feet into the air was like the coolest thing I’d ever done, the coolest thing anyone could ever possibly do. The nights were magical. I was delighted by chasing fireflies at dusk and then falling down into the grass and looking up into the growing darkness.

Where has that sense of magic and wonderment gone? I can do these same things today, but the experience isn’t nearly as intense and awe-inspiring as it once was. Perhaps I’ve seen the blue sky too many times already and am too familiar with the scene and the color? Have I become jaded or tired or something else?

I have recently vowed that this is the thing I need to work on most in myself. I need to find a way to recapture that delight. But, how, precisely, does one go about doing so?

That’s the million-dollar question. This year, I hope to find the answer to it. If I do, I’ll be sure to blog about it here.

Tiptoeing through the Tulips

So I was dining in this Indian restaurant a few days ago. We’d pushed a couple of small tables together as we were a party of seven. Six of us were Americans and the seventh, my wife, was Egyptian. We weren’t drinking alcohol or anything, but the conversation was still silly and random as hell. Many of us giggled and guffawed as the talking occurred. If my memory serves me correctly, I believe there were even a few instances of people chortling. That tells you what kind of evening it was.

At one point, just before the food was brought to the table, Ruthann, a fellow Texan from Dallas, turned to me and said, in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, “Let’s talk about obscure celebrities from yesteryear.” That prompted me to respond, “Hey, does anyone know whatever happened to Tiny Tim?”

Of course, Azza, my better half, had no idea who this miniscule person was. One other individual, a child of twelve, was equally in the dark. Everyone else immediately fell silent. You could literally hear cogs turning in heads as people thought about my question.

I was the first person to break the silence. I said, “Tiny Tim is actually an interesting study. He’s a great example of how far an untalented person can go in show business.”

“It wasn’t necessarily that he lacked talent,” Lori retorted, “It was just that he had the right sort of talent for the 1960s.”

“Right,” said Ruthann. “Weirdness was really in in the 60s, so he had what people wanted.”

I’ve embedded a video so you see an example of what Mr. Tim provided to the public during his heyday.

Now, days later, I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about Tiny Tim. In addition to the clip I included, I’ve looked at a zillion videos of him performing and being interviewed. I even called several colleagues into my office, showed them a few of the things I had watched, and asked them to respond, taking careful notes as they spoke. Like I said, I’ve been a bit obsessed recently.

Perhaps that was his ultimate goal (and genius?) as a performer? To create a persona and a sound we couldn’t turn away from and couldn’t get enough of?

If that was Tiny Tim’s goal, then he certainly succeeded bigly.

Two Sunday Poems and Some Doodles

Making a Living

Sunday is not
Funday.
Especially this one.
There is a hint
Of rain, more than a hint
Of dimness
Darkness
Cloudness.
Then there is
Tomorrow, the much-dreaded.
Today I will
Shave
Iron clothes
Gas the car.
Tomorrow, before daylight,
I’ll set off
Grim-faced
Determined
Single-purposed.
To arrive by 8 a.m.
Is not to
Sleep in.
No more of that
Human
Foolishness.
Because work is what
We people do.
They call it “making
A living” and not
“Having
A
Life.”

The Library, 9 A.M.

I am surrounded
By books.
Their covers flash
Colorful faces.
I step toward one
(In particular)
To note its personality.
I pick it up, look at its
First page.
Its words
Bring a smile. I place it
Back down.
I walk among
The stacks.
A million seductive whispers
Come my way.
I listen
I hear
I smile
(Inwardly).
They want me to stop,
Pay closer attention.
I will stop,
I whisper back. I promise
I will.
And so I do.
I stop, touch
A spine
And read the words
With reader’s eyes.

Two Doodles and a Poem

Death Doodle 1

Death Doodle 2

Endings

People have died.
People I’ve loved
Have gone.
I cried when they stopped.
I watched them disappear.
Their faces
Grew white.
It was the color of nothing, nobody,
No more. We put them
In expensive boxes
Left their lids open
So the curious
Could gawk.
Their faces were as plastic
As doll skin.
Then we closed the lids
Carried them to green places.
Once there
A man said,
Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust.
They went down
Were lowered
Into holes.
We left
Drove away
And forgot.

Doodles & Poems

Combing

Poems are like
Things you find
On the beach.
They’re misshapen but usually
Sparkle in sunlight.
Some are alive
And scuttle about.
Others are dead but have left
Beautiful
White
Skeletons.

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Visitors

Some days the poems knock
On your front door.
You go to open it
And greet them.
You get lots of visitors
On such days.
The knocking persists
Even as you turn off
The lights.
The knocking persists.
The knocking persists.
The knocking persists.
Other days
You wait. No one comes.
You feel
Lonely
Forgotten
Dead. Maybe you are dead?
How would you even
Know if you were
Or weren’t? Who
Would give you
The news?
When no one comes
You aren’t for sure
If you even
Are.

Funky San Antonio Here I Come!

serpent

As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, I manage the Integrated Reading and Writing Learning Center at Palo Alto College in San Antonio, Texas, one of the coolest (but least written about) metropolitan areas in the United States.

I’m blessed to have really good tutors in the center. One of them, Robin Gara, a retired reading and art teacher, paints and writes. The two of us, when things are quiet in our place, often talk about all things artsy-fartsy.

This past weekend, Robin showed some of her paintings in an Art Deco pizzeria located on Fredericksburg Road. My wife and I went to see Robin’s work, and by sheer happenstance, while we were there, they were having an open mic poetry reading. So, after looking at Robin’s stuff—she does amazing things with a pallet knife—and before taking off, we watched some truly interesting characters read a bit of their writing in a funky public setting.

Robin has been after me to get involved in the local art scene—to read some of my writings at the several locales that sponsor public readings. After what I witnessed this past weekend, I think I’m going give it a try.

When I was in my twenties, I used to publish a heck of a lot of poems—or pomes. I kind of stopped, though, quite a long time ago, so I didn’t know if I had anything that I might read. Then I found an old folder full of some passable stuff. I’ve included a couple here.

The Free Man

I’m pissed.
There’s plenty of reasons to be.
That my life is not my own
Is one.
I mean I don’t own my life.
If I did, I wouldn’t be here, not now, not never.
If I did, I’d be gone, long gone, gone long ago.
If I did, I’d be sleeping or screaming
Or something other than this something I am doing
Or am not doing now,
This minute.
This thing I’m doing is not a thing for free men
To do.
My doing it proves that freedom is for others,
I guess.
I want to meet the free man, the other man.
I will sit next to him and not speak.
I will sit next to him and watch
And learn.
When he stands and leaves, I will
Stand and leave.
We two will walk together, not one in front of the other
But shoulder to shoulder.

I Am the Son of Eve

To teach is to be taught.
To learn is to unlearn.
To find the straight and narrow one needs to follow
A winding path.
Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge.
For Eve, I am thankful.
Adam was a wimp because he didn’t think of doing this
Before Eve planted the seed.
Poor Adam, a man
To be pitied.
I am the son of Eve.
I am not the son of Adam.
Like Eve, I do not fear the snake.
I listen to its words and make up
My own mind.
I do not follow the serpent without
Good cause.
When it speaks the truth,
I will not fear.
Fear is that thing which made Adam ashamed
Of his nakedness.
Eve walked proudly without
A stitch.

Never Mind

I want to share this cute TED Talk with you. Toward the end of the presentation, the bald presenter takes out a ukulele and plays it in a terribly funny way. I don’t know if my saying that qualifies as a spoiler (and thus I need to officially provide you with a SPOILER ALERT), but if it does and I do need to, then I sincerely apologize for not having done so in the appropriate way and at the appropriate time.

My point is really to write about the ukulele because it reminds me of my own boyhood. For some reason I have no ability to fathom at this time in my life, I wanted, when I was maybe nine years old, a ukulele so badly that I could taste it—even though I never would have actually taken a bite of its wood if offered to do so. But that’s beside the point. More to the point is this: I asked my parents to get me one for Christmas.

Due to the nature of parenthood, most mothers and fathers will do all manner of silly things including going to a music shop and spending real money to buy a thing that looks like a guitar that was born prematurely, which is exactly what my mom and dad did. I remember it came in a little case and included a pick that looked like it was made of felt. The instrument held my interest for maybe three months which was long enough for me to realize two things. First of all, I had absolutely no musical talent whatsoever, and two, playing a ukulele, even though the instrument had been popularized by Tiny Tim, one of the greatest weirdo performers of all time, was one of the most boring ways a person could spend five minutes or ten minutes or whatever time one happened to spend strumming its four strings.

Once this realization came to me, it went back into its case and resided there until it died the horrible death of suffocation.

OK, so none of my story has anything to do with the video, but that shouldn’t keep you from watching it.

Had I Been Born a Cat

I’d be a lot more relaxed than I am right now had I been born a cat. That’s because I’d know, right in the back of my feline mind, that I had been given nine lives, which is a lot of time to work with and provides for a large margin of error.

Human beings, unlike cats, are given only one life, and it’s a fairly short one. To make matters worse, a lot of that one lifetime is either spent asleep or doing things like sitting in a cubicle at work.

I’m writing all this because I am cursed with a strange affliction. From just about the moment I was born, I have had too many interests and passions. I am a very creative person with lots of different talents, all of which I’d love to equally pursue. But I can’t because of the whole lack of time thing.

I’ve had to neglect this blog, and I’m so upset about it. It’s not that I haven’t been writing. I have been. In fact, I’m about sixty percent done with a novella that should end up being about hundred pages long. It’s a dark book which suits my current mood. (There’s a backstory there that I won’t get into right now.) The thing falls within the genre of psychological thriller with elements of the horror story. My working title is The Red Room.

I’ve also been doing a lot of digital art. In fact, on the art front, there has been an interesting development. About a week ago, I got an email from someone representing Vida.com, an interesting company that works with artists and designers to produce fashionable, high-end clothing and accessories. The person reaching out had seen my work and wanted me to send them some of my images.

So I will send some. And I will continue to work on my novella when I can fit it in. And I will continue to make art, mostly late at night when the opportunity presents itself. Oh, and by the way, I hope to be a more regular blogger too.

I’ll finish by sharing a few pieces of my newest digital artwork.

Picasso, Almost

Sigh. I probably missed my calling. I say “probably” because no one can ever predict how things would have actually turned out had I taken a different route.

My father was and is an artist, and I was born with artistic talent. As a result, I started doing drawings and paintings as a child, and I even showed work at small art fairs when I was just a youngster.

I studied something other than the fine arts, though, when I went to university. I continued to make artwork during my free time while I took classes in the humanities and liberal arts.

About a decade or so ago, I got this crazy idea that I would become a professional artist. Actually, the idea was sane enough for me to successfully place a lot of work in galleries in the US and abroad. I sold quite a few pieces and then had to scale back because it was too difficult to manage an art career when I was so transient and living is such far-flung places. (For about the past twenty years I’ve been an expatriated American and have only recently returned to my home country.)

Today, like so many others, I’ve become obsessed with the internet and all things cyber. As a result, I’ve become more and more a digital artist. Now, when I make I pictures, they are, by in large, computer-generated.

I have developed a pretty cool method for making these pieces. The works are the result of a complex creative process. Many of them start out simply enough, as digital drawings, paintings, or photographs, but then they morph into something that’s hybrid, bold, and totally funky.

I’ve included a small sampling to give you an idea of what I’m talking about. If you’d like to see more, go here.