There is nothing as inspiring as a blank page.
When you begin something new, there is always potential to discover. You learn more about yourself each time you begin a new project.
This past August was my blank page.
I needed a creative boost, I needed to inspire myself and get out of this pandemic dysthymia that has been weighing heavily on all our shoulders. I needed to see, or rediscover, what I could do (or what I needed to work on).
So, each day this past month I immersed myself in the creative process. I wrote, I painted, and I carried my camera with me as I walked throughout the city. Artistically speaking, the camera has always been my first love. I also rediscovered my paint box.
I had no goals in August – no deadlines to meet or results to achieve – and didn’t even keep track of what I had accomplished. I just did what I enjoyed and took time to myself. I looked closely at the details, I looked around as much as I searched within. I spent time with my art.
I took joy in capturing moments as they sped on by, as life does. By taking the time with my art I was able to slow life down just a little.
Art is life.
Life is art.
I live with it.

j.g. lewis

Paradigm j.g. lewis 2003

I have painted for as long as I can remember.
   Not consistently mind you, but I’ve been painting off and on, in fits and starts, for decades. It has always brought me happiness, even a sense of calm.
   I have been painting longer than I have been writing; I think we all have. Painting, or drawing, as young children allowed us to express ourselves more accurately than through our command of those 26 letters.
   We could paint a flower before we could spell it; or house. We could picture our family, or cat, with lines and colours on paper before we could spell everyone’s name.
   Painting was always fun.
   My mom enrolled me in art classes at the Allied Art Centre in Brandon, Manitoba. Art was my favorite class in school, each Grade I was learning more and gaining perspective on what I could do. In high school I studied industrial design, of which commercial art was one of its most captivating streams (yet one not quite as enchanting as photography).
   I have painted off and on through the years from landscapes to abstract. I have dabbled in various styles and mediums, even as I worked professionally as a photographer and writer in my newspaper days.
   As a young father, I was always excited to pull out the paint box and spend time with my daughter. Creativity has always brought us closer. Even a couple of years ago, we together attended a December workshop on designing wrapping paper. Creativity is a joy we share, even now we are both adults.
   Art, I feel, is fundamental to my presence a human being.
   We engage our deeper minds when we create. Painting has often done it for me.
   Yet, I’ve been consistently inconsistent in my efforts and output, until lately.
   When I began a self-imposed artistic immersion on the first of this month, I resolved to pull myself out of this pandemic depression by working on my art.
   Over the past weeks I have spent a great deal of time out and about with my camera. I have notes and stanzas and words to complete a number of poems, have spent some time in a new manuscript, I have attempted (and continue to attempt) to paint Zen circles, have a couple of “art” books on the go, and made several trips to the gallery (as I will be doing, again, tomorrow) to further open my eyes to the wonder and enchantment of art.
   I have also, each week, been climbing on my bike and riding down to the lakeshore where I settle in and mindfully paint for the morning. It is a simple process, in watercolours, where I create non-judgmental art.
   This exercise is about regaining the feeling, and becoming comfortable again with my brushes. It is, essentially, the same scene week after week, but each time I find a new view.
   There is no evaluation, it is all about painting simply, or simply being.   Repetition is important. This is an exercise to inspire me further.
   It seems that the regular practice of painting is bringing me a sense of contentment. I have come to realize I need more consistency in my work, in my study and, perhaps, my life.
   Painting is important to my future creativity and me. It is a lifetime pursuit.
   Years ago, when a much younger me was at a dinner party, the topic conversation turned to hobbies and retirement. I was already working as a writer, and photographer (hobbies only to many), so the question was directed to what creative endeavor would I take up when I retire.
   My answer was instant.
   “I’m going to paint,” I said. “Nudes.”
   Of course they laughed, until they figured out that I was serious.
   Seriously.
   When I “retire” or turn 65, I will begin to paint nudes; big ones, oil on canvas.
I’ve been preparing, really, for most of my life. Nothing commands a young man’s (or older man’s) attention like the female form. Two winters ago, I went back to weekly figure drawing classes; timed poses to get you thinking quickly at looking and capturing anatomy.
   I attended the classes to expand my mind, develop my skills, and to prepare me for my planned retirement project. I now have a sketchpad full of female and male figures in the event that live models will not be as plentiful as I imagine (I’ve got a few years to continue recruiting).
   To paint as I imagine, I will have to step into another medium. Serious art requires serious paint. I have only once before painted with oils.
   I suppose I should, over the coming years, become acquainted with oil paints (maybe even take a class). For that, I have a few designs or concepts in mind – pretty well sketched out – and ready to go, but I will save the nudes for my retirement years.
   Until then I will practice, probably even more constantly than I have been. Art is about learning, as much as it is about living. Art matters.
   As I wrote, yesterday, to my daughter: It’s not what you paint, or where you paint, it matters only that you paint.

Paradigm Shift j.g. lewis 2003

© 2020 j.g. lewis

A trip to the farmer’s market these days is as appetizing as it is inspiring.
August is a wonderful month to celebrate the fresh and flavourful tastes of the garden by incorporating what is available locally into a year-round favourite meal.
I went to the market yesterday to begin preparing for my dinner tonight.
I was looking at colours as much as taste to prepare my:
Summer Spaghetti Sauce 
ingredients:
10 – 15 fresh ripe Roma tomatoes 
I medium purple onion 
I medium Spanish onion or sweet onion 
1 larger shallot or two smaller 
I red pepper 
½ green pepper + ½ orange pepper (depending on what is available) 
*it is as much about colour as it is taste 
I medium carrot 
I large stalk of celery 
1 ¼ cup chopped or sliced fresh mushrooms 
5 or 6 (or 7) cloves of garlic 
At least 250 grams (1/2 lb) of lean ground beef, or pork, or Italian sausage. 
(if you want to go vegetarian: 300 grams of shredded or chopped eggplant or zucchini (or a mix of both)
Two tablespoons fresh basil  
Two tablespoons fresh oregano 
1 ½ tablespoons of lemon pepper
A pinch (or two) of sea salt
Two pinches of nutmeg
I handful of chopped, fresh broad-leaf parsley or cilantro. 
 
1 – 450gram package of dried spaghetti (or, my preference, spaghettini)  
or, if possible, fresh whole wheat pasta
 
This recipe is flexible, can easily be be doubled for a larger meal or to ensure leftovers, but the above will give you three or four servings. The quantities of herbs and spices
are approximate and the measure often depends on my mood. Don’t be timid!
All ingredients can be adjusted any time of the year to suit your tastes or depending  
on what is in the fridge.  
eg. If not using fresh Roman tomatoes, use 1 or 2 cans of diced tomatoes. 
 
In preparation, put your bag of tomatoes in the freezer overnight.
Also put half of the red pepper in the freezer with the tomatoes.

The next day, take the tomatoes and pepper out frozen and run lightly under warm water. The skin will easily peel off the vegetables. Put the peeled tomatoes and pepper in a medium saucepan, covered, over low heat.  As you check occasionally, and see the vegetables soften as they warm, take a knife and chop as you go.
When tomatoes are soft and chopped, turn up the heat slightly and let them boil down and reduce.
At this point, toss one whole peeled clove of garlic in the pot.
With your finest grater or kitchen rasp, shred the carrot in with the tomatoes (this will sweeten and thicken the sauce – no need for tomato paste)

As the tomatoes continue reducing, prepare the remainder of your vegetables.

Chop onions as you wish. I prefer longer (not quite julienne) stands so they mix well in the pasta, but chunky works too.
Slice peppers in a similar fashion.
You can mince garlic with a sharp knife or use a garlic press.
Dice or chop or slice celery and shallots thinly (a shallot will brighten any meal; pretty much).

In a large frying pan, begin browning your meat. If going vegetarian, add a tablespoon of chopped fresh ginger  and an additional teaspoon of pepper to zucchini and/or eggplant. 

If using Italian sausage, remove the meat from the casing. When half cooked, drain most of the fat from the pan then add the onions, shallots, garlic, and peppers. Depending on the meat, you may need to slightly drain the mixture again before seasoning with lemon pepper (or black pepper) and half of the basil and oregano. Add a pinch or two of sea salt.
While this is cooking, add the other half of the basil and oregano to the pot of tomatoes, which should be thickening now.

When the onions are clear, add the diced or sliced or chopped mushrooms to the mix along with the celery, turn up the heat and give it some time to slightly brown the mushrooms.
When everything has cooked, turn off the heat on the frying pan until your tomatoes have reduced to a thick sauce then add the meat and mushroom mixture. Now add the nutmeg.

Allow time for the flavours to mix into each other. Depending on dinnertime, you can let it sit for a while. When you begin heating up, a half-hour before serving, add the fresh parsley.

When serving, keep an eye out for that lone garlic clove you put in the tomatoes at the start of the reduction process. Some people react when they see a whole glove of garlic in something; personally, I make sure it ends up on my plate.

Serve over the boiled pasta, topped with Parmesan cheese (freshly grated if possible)
Serve with a baguette and butter and a green, spinach, or Caesar salad.

Often, I’ll expand the recipe to ensure there are leftovers, which can be portioned with pasta and sauce and tucked in the freezer for nights when you don’t feel like cooking.

Enjoy the tastes of summer.

I know what I’m having for supper tonight.

08/19/2020                                                                                                       j.g.l.

What you desire
is rarely what is needed. Choices implied,
fascination or frivolities. Rare indeed,
in times like these, the weeks as we know.
We are tested
on days like today
when all that is left is hope.

When to live
in the present takes more from us than
we feel prepared to acknowledge. Courage
required; desires will consume. Needs
only sustain
when doubt is more
than a shadow, less than the truth.

Where that
we have, or all we hold onto, is what seems
impossible or unlikely. Or undeserved.
What is required to sustain you?
More hope? Or
more compassion.
Take what you need. Choose wisely.

© 2020 j.g. lewis

When the threat of COVID-19 took hold, my morning routine — like everything and everyone else — was disrupted.
   Back then, most mornings (on days that allowed) when I woke, I would grab my laptop or journal and stumble down the street for coffee at my usual Starbucks. There are three Starbucks directly in my neighbourhood but I, generally, would chose the closest distance to caffeine.
   Once there, often as the door is unlocked at 5:30 a.m., I would settle in with my deep dark roast and continue working whatever I’d been working on; some days a chapter, another day an essay or poem. Many times I’d absorb myself in my journal while the rest of the world woke up and the crowds converged on the coffee shop to pick up a fresh cup on their way to the office.
   All that ended abruptly, mid-March, when this city shut down. Some restaurants and coffee shops remained open for take-out and delivery, but my usual spot closed.
   I still needed my morning cup, so I’d walk a little further — to the one closeby Starbucks that remained open — pick up my coffee and then walk through the downtown.
   Spring had finally settled in, so the temperature was mild and the coffee was warm, so I kept walking, usually well past the moment my cup ran dry. Some days I’d walk much further.
   I wasn’t measuring my distance, nor was I really keeping track of the time.  People on the street, in the early days of the pandemic, were few and far between on just about every street I traveled. Physical distance naturally happened.
   There was no intended route or destination, most days, so at one point I stopped calling it a walk, and began referring to it as my morning “wander”.
   I wandered for weeks, every day for hours; then months. It was near the end of May when I checked the pedometer on my iphone and was notified that I was close to doubling my steps May over April.
   Little else was motivating me right then, but the step count inspired me to pick up the pace and go another block or two. That evening, I went out again to increase my daily average. I, really, wasn’t doing anything else.
   Despite my efforts, I didn’t quite double my May steps, but I became motivated enough to pick up the pace for June. Purposely I was going a little further, still with coffee in hand, and checking my distance at the end of the wander. I began walking more through my day, I began looking for excuses to walk further. I selected ATMs at banks a longer distance from home. I found another coffee shop a little further away to get my first cup of the day. I could see by the last week of June that, at the pace I was going, I would surpass May. Then I had a couple of down days and had to push it hard to make up the mileage in the final few days.
   I saw an increase in June. It wasn’t as large as May, but the red lines of the pedometer’s graph continued going up.
   It was tougher in July.
   The summer heat had arrived (our hottest on record), and I began getting up earlier, just to catch the morning’s milder temperatures. I’d wander further, my T-shirt sopping in sweat by the time I was home. I kept trying to push myself for more steps, both per day and per session.
   Some days I couldn’t take it. Other times I’d make up for it the next day.
   I knew I could do it. I had not only the will, but an app in my pocket letting me know how far I had come. I was checking my phone constantly, at times bargaining with myself, promising small rewards: a Popsicle when I arrived home, or a nap that afternoon. I was doing anything to stay motivated and keep stepping forward.
   I reminded myself of an essay by humorist David Sedaris titled Stepping Out: Living The Fitbit Life’. The 2014 piece from the New Yorker (and you really should Google it) documents how a device pushed him well past the recommended daily minimum 10,000 steps. And how he kept going, obsessively.
   “I look back on the days I averaged only thirty thousand steps, and think Honestly, how lazy can you get?,” Sedaris wrote.
   For me, 10,000 steps was long ago, and I’m not close, at least not often, to a 30,000 step day. But I am walking like I’ll get there.
   I’m not, not yet, obsessive about walking: I’m just doing it; every day and longer.
   It’s funny because before this pandemic business set in, and I was looking for a mindful, physical outlet, I was thinking about stepping back on the yoga mat.   There’s a studio almost across the street, and the hot yoga place is not much further than a distant coffee shop, so I was putting myself in the mood.
   Then along came a coronavirus. No yoga, not then.
   Walking is now was giving me a feeling I hadn’t felt for a while. I was actually stepping with the same daily commitment I had for yoga a few years back. This was feeling almost as good (and it was a lot cheaper), so I continue walking.
   It’s been months now.
   You can imagine how I pushed to get July’s steps up over June, and how – without really thinking of it – I set my intention on increasing my August daily step count up and above July (and I have for each of the past four days).
   I’m even calling it walking now (if you haven’t noticed) instead of wandering. There is still no fixed destination, but there seems to be a greater purpose.