Echoes
5.4.2023
Funny how things repeat, how I find myself writing something as if the idea just came to me, and find it written again, as if I had copied my own notes.
The truck I left behind because: the check engine light, no horn, no turn signal, the incoming rain. When I went back to drive it home after the weather cleared it wouldn’t start and had to be towed to the garage. Rats! had got in and eaten a fuel line. The part on order got delayed in the freak snow storm, then didn’t fit, then a second part also didn’t fit–my little truck, like so much else once trusty and road-worthy, no longer speaks to me, time to let it go.
For years I was a two-vehicle family, work truck and a campervan. I had a business. The business wasn’t me, but it was how I lived, repeating the same tasks, pulling the same weeds, mowing the same lawns, keeping in shape, making contact with humans. It was simple and clear, until it wasn’t.
I kept it going, like all the bands and gigs I fought to carry on with long after there was no life in it. Things too valuable to leave, until the rats got in.
In 1979 when I pulled myself out by the roots of a relationship I found myself raw and homeless and in a scary sort of freedom. It was kaleidoscopic and horrible and culty and dangerous. I fell into things, then struggled desperately to climb out. I visually saw myself on a downward spiral and had to learn to turn around and spiral UP, to save my life.
When I suddenly found myself on stage at the Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco, wrapped in glitter, I recognized nothing was going to overcome the mere two weeks of practice of this absolute beginner. It was then I gave up all pretense of perfection, and thereby, stage fright. I was the drummer for that band, the Superheroes, and the Outrageous Beauty Review, for four months, before I escaped through subterfuge and returned to a semblance of my old life, but the damage was done. I have been a performer ever since, falling into one band after another, punk, folk, thrash, rock, learning bass, singing, and on into the night. All my friends and social life were steeped in it. Forty years on, it has come to a screeching halt.
Did I credit I my wrecked relationship with the disasters that followed, or the positive outcomes? Or did I save my own life more than once, because I was forced awake, forced to survive on my own, for the first time?
The echoes are deafening, but I am safe and know how to live, I know what I want and don’t want. I work so hard to be real, to be present, I guess I get too big for the template. Maybe the template is the problem. I see no picture of myself there, even a kind of terror, and always, an undeniable relief to leave.
Packing up to move again, not knowing what comes next. I am on the threshold of something, looking in, or looking out. I dunno.
Okay, I hear you now.
Ankleversary
4.26.23
I hiked downtown yesterday to make a deposit at the rude, unwieldy new automatic-teller-machine at my bank, then flush with cash, stopped for a lunch of beef salad and Thai coffee. I walked a few more blocks, then spent half an hour browsing the aisles of a hardware store I used to frequent before it moved to an inconvenient location sans parking. No matter now, it’s the same walking distance from home. I bought paint and screws to finish a couple of projects, got those done, too.
I am planning a birthday picnic in the yard with new friends, so I fixed the gate, and have been scraping weeds and grasses from cracks in the flagstone path, and 4-5 inches of mud and overgrowth along the sidewalk. Cosmic dust falling on the planet must have an effect on the rate of rotation of this little ball over time. I see several inches of accretion right here in my yard.
I brought my little Pink Lady apple tree home from Canyon, and got a Cara Cara orange tree, so my tiny orchard is filling out: 4.5 apples (one is rootstock) three citrus, two plums, volunteer nectarine, enormous pear, red and black raspberries, a pineapple guava. I am not so good at vegetable gardening, but fruit trees, they are my people. As someone pointed out, vegetables are work. Fruit trees just hand you a gift. Reminds me of a story . . .
This body is not used to physical labor, but it is coming back. Breaking my ankle two years ago finally ended my business(es), and temporarily turned my full focus to more sedentary pastimes, drawing and painting. Sometimes it’s enough to just show up, but lately I am too busy to sit still. Cancelled my business license in February, last week I sold my truck for . . not much. The rat damage finally tipped the scales.
Getting out into the garden these last few days, I remember how vital, vigorous, powerful I am, I was, I can be. Bare face to the sun and bare feet to ground, free electrons in my bloodstream, lower blood pressure, bringing back my muscle tone. I can change the physical world. I can change my trajectory again. Let’s do this.
Solo
4.20.23
Had to go! For a couple of days. The campsite was unreserved due to the broken vintage table. Although there is another completely serviceable table, “People Complain!” So, cool, I get them both all to myself, didn’t really need either one. The waterfall, from a culvert, is lovely and in direct view.
LB came up to take my photograph and join me for lunch on Sunday, and we left to hike Dillon Beach for a bit. The tiny restroom had an emergency!? exit! sign. ?? Yes, rushing to so many exits. I came home to sell my beloved ’95 Tacoma to Mozart after 22.5 years of faithful service. It’s too hard to get parts, I’ve gotten full use out of it. I no longer have a gardening business, so, I am a one-van happy camper.
In the Before Times, I/we would drive hundreds of miles to get far, far, far away from the crowds, deep into the wilderness where there were no lights, passing cars, other people. Aching to connect, I don’t go far, or for long. My hermitage is in the city now.
Ten Years
4.6.23
Ten years ago this morning, Scruffy was snatched away from us, from me, in the most abrupt and unresolved fashion. Much has been written about the surrounding milieu in my other blogs, Travels With Stevie and Possum Family Singers, won’t go on about it much today.
Nothing is as it was in the Before Times, and that includes what we called 2001. Those days when we basked in pointless travels and imbibements and musical amusements with friends, dear and otherwise, was long gone long ago. I clung desperately to the shell of it all, until that crumbled, too.
I spent the last ten years in a fog of loss, circling a drain that seems to be clogged. I lost seven dear people to the great beyond by the end of 2017, and several more went silent. Grief does that to people and friendships. It gutted my social sphere and upended my daily existence. The unfriendliness of friends, the walls and barbed wire and empty storefronts of my former life, all this is commonplace and felt by most people now.
Not bitter, just exhausted, searching for a unicorn under this pile of manure. Throw a little hay over it, a few months from now, it will bloom with pink mushrooms.
By the way, I hear Betsy moved to Norway. You go, girl.
Palindromes all week
32323
I haven’t been posting so much. These last weeks have been horrific. The last moments of Pluto in Capricorn, to be repeated May-January, so we’re not out of the woods yet. At least it is familiar territory, but, gak, already.
The power was out for a mere 24 hours, it was blowing like a pig and rain, rain, rain. Happily, I had solar camping lanterns, a bag of ground french roast, sweaters, blankets, hot water, and gas stove burners, and a new laptop charger. My oven is digital, so I couldn’t use it, for heat or cooking. It occurred to me that if it was on, and the electricity went out, how would I turn it off? I’d have to get Art to bring the power pack to plug into, or turn the gas off, try unplugging it. Scary.
A branch from one of the redwood trees hit the roof and shattered, a large twig is still on the roof of the porch. I went out to see what the noise was, heard a clunk–just missed it, whew.
I also reassessed my bug-out bag and found it lacking, so added and extracted things.
I took the laptop to charge on the inverter in my van, but further adventures, I needed to replace the fuse to the cigaret lighter. Pro tip, I discovered that 8 amp fuse #8 controls my brake lights! Slot #7 holds a spare. Planned to go get some dry ice for the freezer, but found a solid 8# bag of ice; $8, included a tiny yellow bic lighter. Around 3 PM the power came on. Now I have camping ice, so 8 threads are coming together.
I haven’t been doing any drawing whatsoever, but I have been playing with my ink collection, contemplating and admiring my calligraphy practice. I think it has been a month, let’s just call it a fallow period. The new table, tho! After the storm passed, and the power was still out, I went for a walk and found a cedarwood bookcase on the curb, 28×36, 3 shelves 8″ apart. I cleaned it up and switched out the smaller shelf for boots by the door. It suits the theme better, all the pine furniture, minus the big white book case.
Also pulled out my giant 5″ thick Webster’s Dictionary, on the advice of a speaker on the Global Walkout CA zoom call last night. Are you saying what you think you are? BTW, there were 21 people there, two people I recognize. TMI, maybe.
Meanwhile, I wait for the Coder Kids to reprogram the demon robot dogs to dispense ice cream and Solfeggio tones.
The Looming Anniversary of the Great Demise. Maybe I’ll save that for another day.
I just want to bask in the glory of Now for a while.
Be Here Now
3.8.23
The world has shifted under my feet again. I have been hanging on for dear life. I don’t know what normal is, maybe it will turn up if I just sit here and wait . . . I want to go to the desert, but it will never be the same. I don’t know what I would do there, alone, without my crazy-intrepid companion. In a month it will be ten years since Scruffy was snatched away, I feel no different today. Maybe the pain is a little higher in my chest, almost to my throat, rising in a flush to my muzzle. I am mute.
I have no solace. I want to go back, but there is no there there.
I am back in the cold frying pan. Other memories come crashing in: “This is what I have been dealing with”. And worse. Ya think? Yeah.
A perfect, dismal, miserable day of rain. Tomorrow will be sunny. Let the world spin under me. There is no way out today.
Woke up weary
2.27.23
There is no inanimate object in my universe. I wake up in gratitude to the 500,000 new cells in my body, a new sun rising through the rain. Everything is moving, everything is alive. The sink, the air, the water in my bath. I love you, water. I love my legs, I love that I can still walk. Where would I be without my self, mice elf, who has brought me so far?
Russel Targ said, Above all else, each morning, put your little paws on the coverlet and give thanks for the new day.
I woke with a headache, be it too much popcorn, too much emotional input, sad stories and beloved friends. I went back to bed and took a nap, woke at 1:30 PM to black coffee and a hot magnesium bath, and a bit of soup.
Heading out tomorrow to tend a friend with the saddest news ever.
This week, a breakthrough. How to draw heads, I thought I would never figure this out. In three sketches, my trajectory is visible. Life is good, if you have it.
Who’s house
2.17.23
Abandoned, a house, a shed, another shed, a cat, two greenhouses, a pine tree, an apple tree, clutter and more, and more indeed. A long driveway. Room for a garden. A view of “mountains” and the moonrise. A dream. A beautiful dream.
Manifesting a Work Table
1.27.23
Out with the round black table I bought from Conran’s for my apartment on Emerson Street in 1981. Took off the legs and rolled it into the hallway closet. I had to move out stuff to make room, two boxes of JD and Pearl, et al, into the Underhouse. Also my vintage Ludwig snare and stand. Why not consolidate, the bass drum is out there.
I set up this pine work table I found last year, abandoned on the street by a painting student. I had to scrape and sand off quite a bit of paint to make the surface flat, leaving it pre-loaded with a patina of artistic energy.
I now have about 3 sq. ft more space in the room, as this table is also an inch taller and fits closer to the treadle/printer table. Someone warned me that rectangles are bad feng shuy, but not if it makes more room to ease through the space.
Already I feel a creative upgrade. It was easier to paint from these old photos of Death Valley near Racetrack, 10.03.03; and a view of upper warm spring in Saline Valley, circa 1997.
Also the current view out the back window from the table.
Winter weather
1.16.23
Crazy rains, wind, trees down, houses sliding off hill tops, king tides, cliffs collapsing, beaches eroding, an ant invasion, and me in my little possum holm. Heaven. A bit of hiking the streets between the storms, where I found some cool kitchen things in a free box. A (sweet) potato masher, which I need, a 1/3 cup stainless steel measuring cup, always handy. Several wide mouth pint ball jars, yay, and a red coffee mug I can contribute to the Sunday Salon. It’s a full life.
I made some soup from the meaty carcass of the Christmas turkey, with shiitake mushrooms and fat Italian egg noodles. So good. Also tasty and festive are small chunks of wild salmon, gold potatoes, green beans, broccolini, pink lady apples, coffee and cream, from hikes to B. Bowl.
More little sketchbook play, with opera rose and white gouache, white Signo, micron, Kuretake brush pens, french ultramarine, various greens, yellows, and random watercolors and stains from old messy palettes. Pretty much stolen from screenshots of the sketchbooks of Marina Willer.
xmas haul
1.3.23
Back from the north, where we visited an abandoned, boarded up house with a shed and a garage, and an empty lot on each side. I so want it! Imagine the garden, and the painting studio! How many millions will it take?
The best deal of the season was a stack of sweaters, three turtlenecks and a zip-up cardigan from mimi’s stash of donations. I also bought a long gray skirt at Goodwill. Gift are so unnecessary.
On returning home ahead of the storm (before NYE, which I slept thru) I hunkered down with my new sweaters and youtube, covering up sloppy swatch charts in old sketchbooks, inspired by screen shots from Marina Willer, and previous grid play.
Hermitage
12.7.22
I’ve said too much. Just an image.
What could be happier than this window full of sky, sunlight and squirrels, me and youtube, old sketchbooks, brushes and paints?
What better than unending days of not watching a clock. Just this.
Landscaping
11.20.22
Took a fun workshop in luminous landscape watercolor with Andie Thrams this weekend. I LOVE the juicy yellows, the square format. Many thumbnails and color tests.
Oops: edit: caveat: didn’t mean to hit the Publish button yet.
Some notes: Engage with your subject: why did I choose this subject? What am I seeking? What is my hope? What is the viewpoint? close, far, big, small, hard, soft, gestures, detail, mood, flavor. Be present. Consider the possibilities.
Shake out the hands, roll your neck, mix little color swatches, then pools of color.
Meanwhile: Complaining shrinks your hippocampus.
Gratitude boosts endorphins to produce a euphoric rush. It can boost oxytocin, the love drug (like rubbing the ears of cats). It can boost seratonin to make you happy and calm. It activates the brainstem to produce dopamine. It boosts the immune system, lowers stress and blood pressure.
“Perfection is a stick with which to beat the possible” –Rebecca Solnit
Be peace. Be love. Be here now.
11.11
11.11.22
There is a shock: isolation shifts to all-in. Another fitful night of pain and twitching, I finally got to sleep around 5 AM; five hours later someone lodged a complaint that I sleep too much. It’s ALL too much. A shopping trip left me somewhat disturbed–I need to burrow deeper down in my hidey hole, step away from all the woo woos and turmoil. Just manifest. Don’t advocate. Feeling my connection to the recent past dwindle and dwindle, enforced by a recent spate of coughing up goobers, very unbecoming. Sawdust from sanding, maybe acacia wood. The bliss of working with my hands, painting the roofing house, and then the floor, the stencils. But what for? Just making something real is enough. Activity is life.
Another October gone without an escape to the wilderness. Spending time at home with old photos and memories–attempting to flesh out this other blog–Travels With Stevie–is erratic. Reading how I pine for the desert, how alive and real I feel there, the sublime sense of home, is heartbreaking. And (leaving out the agony and distraction of a partner’s drinking) the perfect life of lavender dawn and morning chorus of my favorite birds, and driving, driving, through open vistas, into the remote fastness of juniper forests, cool mountain air, and brilliant clear desert hot springs.
All the photographs, all the paintings I want to do, sort of a relief that there is a finite number of trips to review and record, that suddenly stops in 2011. Oh, the horror. Do I just tear out pages of pain and misery? Or can I paint over them? Depends on the quality of the paper, I guess, and how it takes to the media, it’s all experiment, discovery, adventure, even now.
Newspapers–what good are they?
No real appeal to the outside world in my present life, but I need a getaway, a private place of my own–Oh! Here it is! At home–total peace and solitude. Not getting bogged down in loss, but true gratitude for purging all, releasing all, and the beautiful core of me, of what I have lived, left inviolate.
Dunno if I wrote that, or copied it from somewhere. Likely, both. Cool.
Ratholm
11.5.22
Again with the Canyon Rats! A crazy scene when I went out to the wood pile and found three 5-gallon buckets of stickers I had carefully organized and placed on their sides so the water wouldn’t get in were EMPTY. Who would take them? Then I noticed a large tinker-toy-like assemblage on top of a nearby stack and realized the Wood Rats had taken them all and made a shelter. Oh shame, I didn’t get a photograph! before taking it all apart and whisking the buckets of sticks away in the square wheel cart for safe-keeping. It was quite spectacular. They must have been so happy to come upon a fine selection of sticks so conveniently left for them. Sorry guys! Off you go to the Woods.
I had to jump up and leave when Art started spreading Bondo on the music room floor. Oh dear, the smell! Sometimes I wish for a quiet, peaceful getaway. Quinn’s too-bright lights next door keep me awake nights. I have a hard enough time with the twitchy legs and all. There is so much light that I can make my way out to the parking lot and my van, tucked behind the big abandoned box truck, and attempt some sleeps there. Then I realize, Oh! I have a home!
I was mostly packed out anyway. Roofing House is buttoned up for the coming Rains. I brought my silk dress and Martin bass and books home for the winter. So here I am alone on a Saturday night, total peace and solitude in my tiny studio apartment with a private yard and a redwood tree. Except for, again, the bright freaking backdoor light of my nearest neighbors, which I have hidden behind a big ugly brown tarp hung from the trees.
We had heard that Huey White died in October, at 93 years old. Art called Al to touch base with him–his wife said Al had died in February! We had tried to take Al out to lunch last year but she wouldn’t let him go because Covid. Now he’s gone anyway. What a shame.
RATS!
October 25/eclipse 2022
My friend gave me a little Mexican-made chest of drawers as a gift for helping her in her studio. Just in time! because now instead of having my acrylic paint tubes and bottles in open trays, subject to terrorist assault by hungry rats, I can keep them secure. The chest had been left outside for a bit, sufficient to have the drawers stucky and wonky. I sanded them all down and got them working nicely, and touched up the outside with successive grades of sandpaper and a coat of Feed-N-Wax.
Meanwhile, I found four aforementioned chewn-open and partially eaten tubes of paint resting atop a container of some dolls–I found the hair of Pocahantas in the paint-tube tray. Titanium white, Neutral gray, phthalo blue, and for good measure silver, turned out to be just the colors I needed to mix and match the “cape cod blue” I had used on the floor last month. Squeezed what was left into jars, and started mixing; way too much white, so I ended up adding a few drops of carbon black, dang close, I’d say. The rat had also chewn into a bottle of bronze paint, and I tried using that as a stencil color, but it was too faint, so back to the iridescent blackish, and done.
By the way, I had been painting most of the interior in this patchy style, using Zinsser 1-2-3 due to the history with mildew. On the window-well walls here I pulled out some interior latex, which turned out to be what I had used on the ceiling “Summer Sky” almost imperceptibly sky-blue. I love the way it gradually moves from blue to white as it goes from the floor and up the wall.
Banana light
10.19.22
skating on the edge of gouache and watercolor, brush pens, mysteries of light.
Falling Up-
October 5, 2022
Playing with my new gouache in a small sketchbook of olive green paper, portraits and anatomy from photos and screenshots. I took photos of some of the images in the book Natural Fashion, Tribal Decorations from Africa (wait–I can’t underline?? wth?) that I bought Vikki for Christmas, at last getting around to working from them. Also a screenshot from Vania Bashur, who teaches classes on Domestika. Nothing inspires me more than new materials.
I was telling the story of how I keep buying classes (mostly around $10 each, special discount) but can’t work in the linear structure of the courses. I get hooked on the trailer, and then am not happy with how the instruction plays out. So I am just taking screen shots from some of the video introductions and copying them, then clearing them off my computer.
Also about copying, judgement, what is art. Ok, here we are. This week’s work, so far.
Studio Floor- blue
9.29.22
Finally found an image I could cut a template for, to stencil the studio floor. I had smeared some of this deco-color cape cod blue from a tiny bottle on the deteriorating plywood to see how it would last, and heck, good enough. That’s how it happens, after months (years) of a blue floor rattling around in my head, i just started in. Cutting the printout I stuck to a sheet of bristol board with tape, I used a stiff acrylic paintbrush in different intensities to dab Daler Rowney FW iridescent acrylic black ink through the stencil. So satisfying! The more i used it the more water resistant the stencil got, pretty permanent now. Finished with a coat of Golden acrylic soft gloss medium, supposedly waterproof. Too late, I realized I could have extended the blue a bit with the medium. But I’m happy.
Tiny Haul: Late September
August was so busy. Every weekend we have been out of town, festivals, campouts, and visiting friends; San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, Felton, Cotati, Pescadero. (check out photos at possumfamilysingers.com).
I’ve decided to stop worrying and love the new Berkeley, after finding a huge new art supply store on 6th Street. Been wanting to replenish my gouache supply for ages, and the fact that they are not behind locked doors was a temptation too great to resist. I went on a tiny shopping binge: a minimal array of six colors, a micro palette, Daniel Smith mineral watercolor dots to try; a 2.3 mm eraser pen and refills, a purple glue stick. All laid out on the tablecloth as I waited for a slice and a pint at soon-to-be-demolished North Beach Pizza.
I chose six colors of gouache: spectrum red, spectrum yellow, spectrum violet, phthalo blue, chromium oxide, van dyke brown. Add these to my big tube of permanent white, and opera rose.
So many colors, I wanted to document the swatch display for future reference and further investigation. Now, back to work.
deck chairs on the titanic
9.7.22
I have wanted to do this for so long. I tried white, ow, my eyes. Green, hideous. I really thought the blackish, chalked, charcoal gray would be awesome, but too hot to be practical on the sunny porch. But then, one day, looking out my window, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I had seen some gorgeous patio chairs in black and they were perfect. I’ve had these great stackable chairs since the John and Linda times–that would be circa 1990, at the latest, and they were used then. The table was abandoned by one of my clients some ten years ago because it had a screw loose. Don’t we all, at some time. I couldn’t be happier with how they turned out. Plus, Vikki’s birdcage.
p. s. The first can at my local hardware store, $6.49. The second can, at a 3-letter chain down the road, $13.99. Wth?
Stalled in the Fall
9.3.22
So busy, music wise, not much time or energy left for the pencil and brush. To see what I have been doing in August check out my site possumfamilysingers.com. Every weekend has been a gig, a festival, a campout, from Santa Cruz to Santa Rosa. I plan some downtime for September, yessirreee.
RATHELL
8.24.22
The Wood Rats are unrelenting. Weird little people, they chew into tubes of vaseline, olive oil, bottles of silicone 3-in-1 oil, home covid test kit fluid, they secret away dirty sponges, strips chewn off an empty milk bottle, baseballs, tennis balls for nesting, a rubber ducky, a massage ball—chewed all the points off looking for a way in. They chew holes in anything they think will have a viscous fluid inside, chew all the way around a plastic jar lid hoping to get it open. I don’t know what the attraction is. Alternatively there are some rats that eat all the leaves off anything I plant, a camellia was eaten to the ground, a french prune tree was nearly decapitated, a grape vine, a wood betony, tiger lilies, celery, onions, three blueberry bushes were eaten to death. A Winter Banana apple tree was stripped of its fruit and demolished.
They get into the cars. While driving the van once, bits of Kleenex began blowing out of the heater vent, followed by carpet fluff and some colorful threads. When I opened the door a mouse jumped out. I put a bottle of peppermint extract into the utility drawer after I found someone had chewed up a matchbox in there. I later found a nest in the engine compartment comprised of insulation and bits of a chenille blanket.
The best remedy so far seems to be jiffy corn muffin mix and baking soda, just enough sugar to appeal to their discerning taste, plus baking soda to give them gas. They go to their little holms and to bed with indigestion, and wake up demised. Rats can’t burp, a gift from the gods, as they are the only creatures for whom jiffy corn baking soda is lethal.
Another oddity, I suddenly stopped drinking alcohol sometime last summer. I’ve been very careful about what I consume since the possible food poisoning incident early this month–woke up with excruciating kidney pain at 3:30 AM–I dreamed I was herding cats, tigers, leopards, in and out of a cage tied together with plastic shopping bags and string and wire.
There has been a lot of emotional trauma going on in general, and I am very skittish, can’t sleep, too much light, too much noise. I think it is manifesting in my body as sudden pain. Lots of writing in the book of Grrrr, trying to find the new normal. Fun is barely fun, I am disentangling myself from where I am not needed, which is just about anywhere.
Think I’ll have a corn muffin and a bicarb, take a nap and check you later.
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