circles

I really like circles.

I can't explain why, but I just really like them. I like the fluidity and the motion of their shape, and I like the symbolism of the never-ending form. I really like circles.

Since I'm a writer and an artist, I find myself thinking about things like circles. It sounds really strange, but I can't help it.

I've been taking yoga classes, which are helping me ground myself in my thoughts and my feelings -- discovering and understanding the way that my body moves and the way that we often think: in circles. An idea will pop into your head, you think on it, then move on to the next thing, then to the next thing, and then to the next thing. But then it dawns on you -- I've forgotten where I started. And you go back. You complete the circle, using the the things that you've thought in the interim as a prompt, a way to more fully understand the first thing.

When you learn to draw a person, most of us learned the circle method. We are, according to elementary art principles, just a bunch of circles. Sometimes ovals, but circles stacked and connected to create our form.

My grandfather has been very ill recently. He has congestive heart failure and was placed in a hospice facility about a week ago. I was telling someone about it and they said to me, not indignantly, but actually rather surprised, that I seem really very OK with it all. I'm not, actually, OK with everything, but the more I've thought about this, the more I'm beginning to accept that this is all just part of the circle. I hate the cliche -- the circle of life -- but I think, like all cliches, it exists because there is something of a fragment of truth to its meaning: You're born, you live, you die. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We're not meant to stick around forever, and I find something strangely comforting knowing that we live and die because we are meant to, not as some universal vengeance being taken on the living. Death is hard on the living, I've said that before, but mostly because it forces us to confront our own mortality, which I'm not going to lie, is absolutely terrifying. But why? Why is it so scary for us if that's what we're meant to do eventually? Maybe because living is the only thing we know how to do. These are all still thoughts in process... I'd like to know what you all think too.

But circles. Layers upon layers of circles. Life is about circles, days, weeks, months, years. The organization appeals to me and comforts my sensibilities. Such big ideas for a Thursday morning...