new drawing – i want life, life wants me, to breathe in its love (while running), graphite and pastel on paper, approx 36″ x 52″
I’ve been trying to run regularly for a year and a half. The first year was a slog – building up to just being able to not stop for the first 12 minutes took me six months. I’m more used to it now – good thing because running has become a necessary practice for me, letting some crazy energies move through. Making art is another vessel for this. Songs I have loved forever have new life, and lyrics pop like I’ve never heard them before. I’m trying to just flow with it.
This song, Breath of Life by Erasure (Erasure videos are legendary – is that Vince Clarke as a crying crab on the beach?? Stick around for the dancing children in clam costumes), I probably first heard this song 25 years ago. Then, hearing recently this refrain, “I want life, life wants me, to breathe in it’s love” is just yet another piercing arrow in my heart among several these past weeks.
So the drawing is a kind of map, a reflection, of one of these runs – we’ll call it roughly N Seattle, Green Lake-ish. Blurred as a past moment, something to do, something I need to do, that was done and felt – “these sweet minutes, falling away forever” as I recently told a friend. Like trying to hold onto water.
OPENING LYRICS AND CHORUS
Never had a point of view’
Cause my mind was always someone else’s mind
I never had to tell a lie’
Cause I left the choices up to them
Don’t know why but I did
Oh I want life Life wants me
To breathe in its love
Take me I’m yours
Now I’m coming up for air
I’m gonna live my time
For the rest of my life
Then I’ll be coming back for more
studio, May 16, 2025