Cosmic Spirograph

I don't know how many people would remember the toy, "Spirograph", but as a kid, it was far and away my favorite thing to play with. I enjoyed the order of bringing lines together in perfect synchronicity to create something completely new, vibrant and beautiful. It amazed me how, no matter how hard I tried to color outside the lines, I just couldn't when using the pieces properly. It was like a ballet dance being carried out inside a gazebo; where there was beauty and rhythm, but also form, balance.

I became rather good at it, often using different shapes and different patterns, swirling useless ink around to make something different each time. I suppose having a little freedom of movement coupled with order and structure was pleasing to me at the time.

Sometimes, I imagined the nucleus of an atom with the smaller piece, and then swapped it out for different colors and shapes that would make a ribbon-like circuit around the nucleus. At age 13, I discovered you could order replacement pieces, or different shapes that didn't come with the kit. I drove my mother nuts that summer tying to get as many of the pieces as I could.

The pattern guide inside the box was a big help but as with all things creative in my life, I rarely followed the directions. In fact, when I was 19, I was at a fabric store with my mother when I noticed foam sheets. An alarm went off in my head. With a foam sheet, I could make new patterns! Wow! Wasn't that genius?

Well, it was... and then it wasn't. As it turns out, the whole thing is based on a system of mathematics and trying to figure out the geometry of it blew my mind to the point where I just gave up on it.

A few years later, I opened up my old spirograph kit. By then I had my own kids and they were enjoying the game. I took some of my old prints out of the box, pinned them to a canvas for inspiration and tried my old foam shapes. What I got was really more of a psychedelic neon trip through a cyber space clock or something, but of all my work, I liked this one the best. (Pictured at the top of this article.)

There was order in the chaos. Painting something by hand removes the precision of the spirograph. I'm a musical spirit so it's no surprise to me that I could see keyboards and music notes in the piece at the top of the page. I also saw the Viking brothers of the four winds at each corner for some reason, and people chatting at coffee shops. I never saw anything like that in my spirograph work.

In the past twelve months, I have lost my mother, and my dog who was my companion for almost 13 years. Both my mother and my dog were old, but they were precious to me and losing them took a lot of the spirograph-free days out of me.

In the past twelve months, I have been diagnosed with arthritis in both knees, have given up my music, started renovating my house and began a new career in a field I am having to learn from scratch. I have been to weddings, funerals, baby showers, bridal showers, corporate dinners and child births. I've handled catering for company events, had Covid-19, had cars break down, plumbing go bad, sewage coming up in my tubs, and a number of other ridiculous things I don't even want to mention. I even have a Pomeranian who lost a tug of war with a Pit Bull over a toy rope and had to spend over $800 to correct his teeth!

Through all of that, I have somehow managed not to go crazy although looking at that last paragraph in writing, as daunting as it is, there is so much more I didn't include. It's amazing how much can happen in the short expanse of a year.

The baby shower I attended was for my step-daughter and the childbirth, was my grandson, Luke. The bridal shower was for my nephew's bride and I was blessed enough to see them begin their life together later at their wedding, one of a few I've been to lately. Covid-19 had me so down for so long I thought I would die, but it didn't kill me. I still love music, I'm just not making any of my own right now.

I can't tell you how big a challenge it is to look at the stairs that lead to my office every day, or to gaze at the parking garage knowing that I'll never make it to the upper levels by way of the steps. I have to climb the ramps because my knees can't take the stairs, and there's no elevator. But if I'm going to keep food on the table, I have to work, which means I have to figure out ways to make it up the stairs and to my car at least 5 days a week. I'm taking the work on my house in very small spurts because there is so much I can't do at one go any more... but God help me, I'm doing it.

My hope is that, since all of the muck and the mire of the past twelve months is gone and I can't change it, the next twelve months will be more merciful and blessed. After all, it seems like yesterday I started the job I'm in, and I've only been there 6 months. It seems the older I get, the faster time passes.

I sometimes feel like the wheel of a spirograph, always seeking to break the confines of the construct, only to bounce back to the next wall and regroup until I hit the next one. It's as if some cosmic game is at play and I'm the little cog in the wheel doing what it must to keep the rest of it moving. Sometimes, when the rhythm gets to be too much for me, I just have to stop, stick a pin in the thing and let it all move around me until I figure out what looks best for me.

I'm learning what's best for me often isn't the perfectly outlined, geometric shape generated by the cosmic spirograph, but sometimes is just my translation of what works best for me and occasionally, it lands me outside the construct. But that's okay... isn't it?