September Manifesto

Because I didn't have to, I spent the weekend working in my studio. Since January I have been working on a series of self portraits in an effort to give myself a vehicle for experimentation beyond my daily work. I began by taking photos of myself and then making paintings using water colors. In the beginning the paintings were small now they are bigger. I have never been adept with water color but I did it anyway. Each piece has resulted in a satisfying surprise. Needless to say the creative process or the process of making something is mysterious. You never know how things will turn out and often this uncertainty stops me from making anything and based on the number of self help books on the subject I am not the only one. I am still trying to keep connected to my morning pages and the self portrait series has given me some clearly defined parameters in which to make visual work. I bought a bunch of wood mounted Linonelum blocks a few months ago with a mind to create some lino-cuts but the mood never quite struck me until a few days ago. The pieces above are some of the results. I intend to add 2 more layers to the piece which will involve some type. I am not sure how I feel about the cartoon-ish nature of the drawing but I do like the authentically thoughtful facial expression. The main thing about these pieces is to not question them too heavily. I am trying to accept first that they are valid because of their mere existence and I will think more deeply about them once I have a lot of them to consider.

Humanity Failing

I feel my faith in humanity slipping away. I am speaking in the most general terms of course. I feel old as I think this, but the youth today are completely lackluster. They are poorly dressed, soft, and dull in their thinking. They are easily led and prone to violence.

On our annual camping trip I overheard such a youth speaking. She was the female of the species, voluptuous but otherwise physically crude. She had died hair, pre-straightened for the outing to the lake. She was with friends, another couple and her companion who was another stellar example of the point I am trying to make. They were messing around as young, drunk people will do on hot summer days, on remote lakes. They were talking as they messed, floating in big plastic inflatable rings, oblivious to the majestic natural setting. He noticed she had a tattoo stretching the length of her exposed side, dipping into and out of her white over-taxed bikini, at both ends. It was some sort of script, not English, not an Asian dialect, perhaps First Nations but not entirely. He asked her what it said. She said " I forget" then giggled a bit "I got it a long time ago". I wanted to yell at her "You better make something up to tell people otherwise you're going to be exposed as a complete idiot for your whole pathetic life!" I thought better of it and went back to ready my book.

Later on at the same spot some young people gathered with their kids and dogs and chaos for the afternoon. The dogs fetched and were obedient for the most part but at the end of the day when they had all packed up and slowly disappeared, one little dog got left behind, just left behind. One little dog named Duchess sitting there sort of bewildered but perhaps a little relieved to be free of it's negligent caregivers, grateful to not be eaten by their Pit Bulls.

I'm worried there are multiple generations of people who were not raised by anyone with any sense. The spawn arrived, was wrapped in synthetic blankets with Disney motifs and then left in front of televisions and dog bowls fighting for crumbs with Pit Bulls and Chihuahuas. In order to survive, the girls got sexy and the boys got violent and no one learned to read or plant a garden. I saw these people at the County Fair pushing their baby strollers, tattoos on display. The women all looking vacant, the men looking mean and sure enough the night after we were there, there was a shooting in between the midway and the milking displays. No one was killed but a young gang member was arrested. It was shocking in a non-surprising way. Walking on the midway while my kid road the crappy rides I felt like I was walking through a horror film where the art director had done an excellent job of finding all of the most-malformed and horrific examples of this sub race of humans. Only it wasn't a movie set, it was real and that's why I feel sort of sick at the moment.

I foolishly read some of the comments left on the story about the shooting. Of course the conversation went very quickly to issues of racism and immigration. I feel the problem stems from a feeling of deep hopelessness but not the sort that I suffer from which is only one side of a coin, the other side of which is filled with incredible options, kept separate solely by my own apathy. These youth live in a world without the smallest knowledge of any of these options, their hopelessness unrecognized as even a state beyond their own reality and the realities of those around them.

They need support, someone to raise them up with compassion and expose them to a world where they matter. I am not sure how to do this but I am going to think about it. Yesterday I apologized to a young man who upon hearing my apology told me to go fuck myself. I was sort of surprised but also felt for him. What a world to live in where you can't even accept the smallest of kind gestures. I felt bad for a bit as I walked back home feeling like the world was changing and that I would never want to walk along my road again. I don't want to make that choice. I want to be out in the world with the freaks and the malcontents so I will go again and when I see this guy on the road I will wave at him in my friendly way because that's the world I want to live in.

Looking forward

I was in this place again with my little family feeling all grateful and happy like eating a comforting and healthful soup. No news, no internet, no endless facebook updates, no regrets. Another summer is coming to a close, like a good novel it had it's ups and downs. I am still fragile, more so than I probably care to admit but I think change does this to me. Things are changing. Fall is coming, the kid is changing, the old man is changing, my parents are changing, it's a lot to reconcile in 2 short months. Fall is a time of renewal too and I am eternally optimistic about everything, including my ability to rebound to the person I want to be again. I have plans to reno my bedroom, sewing projects, knitting projects and more portraits that perhaps I could show somewhere, someday. I really believe that we can all be happy in spite of the trajectory we are all on, hurtling toward infirmity and sure death. As long as there are calm lakes to swim in I'll be fine.

Episode

It was 45 minutes before he began to be responsive. We ate our hamburgers because we didn't know what else to do and they were cooked. One of us would get up and check on him periodically. The time passes slowly and initially you are calm and do what has worked in the past, but then more time passes and we began to think maybe this is it, this is how it ends but you don't stop yet, you keep reacting just in case. We were moving around the house not really talking to one another but in our minds we were both concocting strategies for what to do. Eventually the ER was the answer and that's where Mark took him, only by the time we called an ambulance and arranged to meet them just inside the Canadian border he was coming around, nicely. He squeezed my hand when I asked him to but would not speak. In the car as they pulled out of the driveway I waved at Eddy and he waved back, like nothing was wrong. He was fine but the trip to the emergency could not be aborted and so Mark kept on, making up for the other times when we did not take him perhaps. At midnight they were back home and we were there to meet them, having cleaned up the dinner dishes and crossed the border into Canada, with the dogs and everything else.

At the doctor today Eddy sits looking down and we talk about him like he isn't there, but he is there. He looks mad at times, and scared at other times. He says very little or nothing. We learned from the doctor that when he has one of these episodes we need to elevate his feet. This is good simple advice and it makes me feel empowered for when this happens again. Mark is not so sure and he requests a change to some different meds to try and avoid the seizure all together. We went years without any of these episodes and now they are quite frequent. His state is precarious, his circulation poor, he is slow to respond to much stimulus, he is forgetting how to eat, but he's alive. So we go along with him moment by moment, ill-equipped as we are, our resolve propping him up. It's all we can do.

Painted

Because you have all been so good and have not stood too close to me, and have not been too needy in general, I have made a painting. I actually had a strategy with this one but it does not behoove me to explain it to you. Because you are wise enough, you might intuit it. Wise you are and good also. I am calming down nicely, doing some things around the house again, feeling less out of control, noticing how much I like order and putting things into an orderly state, engaging my hands. Whatever it is, a mania, an obsession. I never go too long doing things, allowing myself to be distracted away from my work and other commitments. I designed a whole book in 4 days. That has to count for something. The in-laws came to stay at the weekend and they are such good company I was really cheered up and I have been sewing again. Words are difficult just now and the stories are not stories, rather they are disconnected lines and I wonder if I should just stick to pictures. I swam in the lake yesterday while the dogs thrashed and barked and it felt like how I dream summer should be.

Quit yer crying

The pity party is over. Time to recycle the empties, clean the ashtrays, and wipe the sticky tears off the floor. My bed is made, my clothes are put away, my room is tidy. There is solid ground under my oversize feet, I have much to be thankful for and all the rest that I have no control over can fuck off. It's sunny in the PNW so maybe I'll go for a swim in the lake.

Remission

So let's just say I was losing it. It was subtle. I kept it to myself but I was losing it. It felt like melting. And then without warning it started to come back. I regained it. Somewhere between pouring concrete, and waiting for the kids dance class to end. I had been talking to the new neighbors who were there too, and are recently in love, and I got carried away listening to them. He was standing behind her, hands on her hips the whole time and it felt good to just see them be in love and it made me think about what I have and I started to feel good. Love is so good and we are lucky to have it. And then the CSA box arrived and I felt good about the good food I eat, I made a big Greek salad and tzanziki and I visited a sage a friend who has known me a long time. A person who I can be myself around, my whole self, and it crept back. She suggested swimming might help and being with people. I have no idea what IT is but when I feel like I am losing grip on IT I get so worried and perplexed. How did I let IT go. Like those teeth dreams from college, where they are suddenly all rotten and you are in your mouth, peering out. And you think FUCK, how did I let this happen. Anyway, I am going to go see the doctor and sort out this BP thing. I have been so worried about it and that is maybe what's causing me to feel so horrendous. My sage friend has a sage husband who is very good-natured and I am entertaining the idea of changing my thinking to be positive all the time and not to worry but it's hard because as women we have the evil force of hormones to deal with and they are unruly like that Damien kid in the Omen. You can't just love it away, sometimes you seriously need to drive a stake through IT.

Concrete

On top of everything else I made a concrete pad over the weekend. It was Pearl's birthday so I waited until the sleepover guests went home and then I began. It was raining but I was undeterred in my lightweight raincoat, one of three raincoats I own and I pondered as the climate deteriorates, er changes we will need different clothes to function well in the gray moist world. I built the frame first, 4 feet by 6 and set it in place. I filled it with rocks and metal leftover from the two double box springs I tried to burn poor-white-trash-style on the burn pile. The cheap fabric melted away, the wood charred but the metal remained. I was pleased by how easily the metal springs came off the superstructure, no tools required beyond my gloved hands. The frame for the concrete was big and I underestimated the concrete it would require to fill it, so after mixing 4-60lb bags I stopped, took off my rain coat and started collecting rocks to fill the voids. I have a surplus of rocks here and so off I went and picked them up one after another until the bucket I was collecting them in weighed just enough to carry. I would dump each one and I found myself saying "just nine more loads" each time. I made about 2 dozen trips looking for mid size rocks, digging into the muddy earth with my hands and pulling them up, moving from spot to spot letting the rocks decide my path. On Monday I rested. On Tuesday I mixed up 11 more bags of concrete one by one and filled the spaces not taken up by the rocks from Sunday. At 4:30 it was done. Mark helped me screet the surface with a 2 x 4 and then he finished the edges because that is what he does and I am beyond grateful. I went and looked at the finished slab this morning and felt quite pleased that it is done and although the surface is flat and smooth I hold the memory of what lies beneath.