Finding myself in a comfortable chair in the lobby of the East Tower, Beaumont hospital, Royal Oak, Mi.., Appr. 4 hours, twice a week for 2 years waiting for my wife accepting chemo, I attempted to see, with pencil and paper in hand, life in the hallway. It wasn’t People Watching exactly. I was trying to feel the moment, the movement, light and shadow letting the flow reveal and using drawing to focus, no looking at the paper, no think/draw, see/draw. It took time. The first few books were a little tight, more drawing and thinking about drawing than seeing. We are so result oriented and this being a public setting it took awhile to free up. But it came the more I stayed with it. People walk by fast, even when they’re slow it’s fast. I needed to see it, get it down quickly and not belabor the drawing after the moment was gone. This turned into a detachment from worrying about outcome and an acceptance in the process of quick seeing/drawing. I became a part of the hallway, connected. Faces and personality drifted away in the quickness. What was left in the moment was movement, arms legs feet, tilt of the head, float, swagger bop,stutter, feel the ground, roll on preoccupied. Walking, how was it possible? No thinking or awarenesss, just moving of legs, how do the feet realize the ground, why doesn’t the body fall? What keeps it upright with a knowledge of gravity. I began to see the wonder of walking. The magic of the inner gyroscope. There were quite a few more aha! Moments sitting in the East Tower at Beaumont.I was there for two to three hours in a seeing meditation and eventually I came away with more than a full cheap 40 page sketchbook of quick sketches. I was changed somehow with the flow of humanity, wheelchairs, gurneys, cleaning carts and the occasional dog passing by. I connected, became part of that hallway twice a week. People revealing so much in their walk, their gate, their style, physical blocks, light and dark, fast and so painfully slow. There is so much to see and feel. It gets in your bones of memory truth, like a melody that occasionally brings back youth.
When I brought the car around for Diana and drove home I usually felt a centeredness, a solidity I normally am not used to. I saw the trees and cars and movement differently more clearly.L more truthfully somehow, like working in the studio all day but different. Don’t get me wrong, there were days when I didn’t feel like it, or was bored by the whole process. Maybe occasionally I would get something to eat, or just go home. But 95% of the time I was seeing in the east lobby.