Solsticial

June 23, 2025

It has been a long time . . . life is very strange lately, and I like it. I recently spent four days in Santa Rosa, visiting a human, and a dog who is enamored with me, shopping, making a pot roast, the usual. So happy to be home with my bed, my garden, my silence, my local routines.

I am seeing an acupuncturist, adjusting my diet, finally getting the diagnosis that concurs with my suspicion that my mercury fillings are the source of my tinnitus, ear infection, and leg discomfort. I am attempting to contact a recommended dentist to remove the leakiest of the three amalgam fillings that still remain. The dentist I am calling is Iranian–more’s the pity, with the war at fever pitch now.

I did a big detox, a fast, and was living on smoothies for a week. I returned to solid foods in anticipation of the Meadow Muffin, and thereupon helped kill three bottles of wine with my two invited guests on the first night. I also recall storming the stage with my Martin bass and jamming with Maaatt and another bass player for an hour that night. The next day Art and I played some of our repertoire, and Maaatt joined us to steamroll some Lost Hippies material. He takes all my vocal parts, so I can’t harmonize. If I do, he jumps the track and sings what I am singing. Ah well, just as well to be rid of it. On the Monday after, I went up on the bare stage alone, with my Martin, and sang a bunch of tunes while folks rolled wires and packed the sound gear away.

Art and I are getting on, as friends. We’ll play two festivals in August, the International Musical Saw Festival on the 10th, and the Cotati Accordion Festival with Greg on the 18th will pay for the gas it takes to get there. Oh yes, plus the yummy chicken BBQ lunch. I didn’t think there would be a time that I would be Okay with it again, but here we are.

There have been some odd dreams of late, as suggested by the current Jupiter/Neptune square. James had a wonderful NDE type dream of angel people who basically said, it’s all right, don’t worry. I had a dream about my studio at Howe Street. There was an actual ARTIST there (me??) taking up the full half of the two-car garage that I had 1/4 of, climbing over dog shit, furniture, paint cans and storage bins to access. An older (like me) guy, dramatic landscapes, must have been acrylics (or pastels?) because I don’t recall the smell of turps. There was a doorway, and a woodworker in the other half, so yay! Framing! and sawdust? I don’t recall that smell, either. Then we walked out to the street, which had become a road, overlooking the bridge through trees, and sparse traffic driving through knee high mist, with the City in the distance. At some point, he (me??) kissed me! Did I receive a blessing from the pastel gods?

I’m pining for those studios, sad to recall how appropriate both Howe Street and the Roofing House were for pastel dust, which I never realized. I had so much fun with my acrylics then, and just painting walls and building shelves and hanging lights and stenciling floors, all the prep work that goes into having a working space, only to be ejected, and abandoned. So frustrating. What can it all mean?

So I’m airing out my pastels, I bought some board to try, small panels that fit in a pouch I can carry about. I have a sheltered space and table in the garden to clear. There is so much junk I have been getting rid of lately, it’s groundbreaking, making space for me–even Steve’s circular saws and MAAP gas, out on the curb and snatched up in moments by someone who might actually use them. Not letting go of the jigsaw and Sawzall tho, yo.

So much time in the garden, and it’s feeling really settled. It’s all about letting things unfold, following the whim, letting the Crows be the birds in my garden, I can’t fight them. I put in two more raspberry plants, two more high bush blueberries, two thornless blackberries my neighbor had put on the street. I have cut the Insipid Pink Pearl back to three fruits, and there is more wood to take out to make room for the Pink Lady, which has its first apple this year. Every day I get out into the garden I make huge progress, with my worm box in place, and new attempts at weaving the patio chairs underway.