2.9.24

e.g. just spent two hours deciding to go out and get some things out of the van, it was a struggle to get my boots on, i ended up washing my hair. finally i was ready for the long walk (what, about 45 feet) and down the stairs. glorious day, fresh air and sun after the long long rain, and there i was, in my element, checking oil, checking tires, pulling crocosmia before it spread along the fence, hauling a box and a bag and a chainsaw and a few things on hangers into the house. curious. 

ah. there’s the new moon.

late december, 2023
Clearing my desktop of clutter, sketches from the unknown past, some from the roofing house studio journal, summer of 2020. It makes me happy to see how loose and free and un-precious these are.

It’s close to a year since i closed my business license and sold my truck, it will be three years since I actually gave up the business, after I broke my ankle and lost interest. Sometimes I wake up feeling palpably calm and free, no longer obsessing over what was. I do miss the exercise, fresh air, hands in the dirt, a sense of purpose, cash, check, human contact. 

Quality time at home, but making a point of pushing myself out of the house; new friends and groups and nutritional inputs—I think I am feeling more like myself than ever, wearing colors, not so black and brown–and did I say I cut off my possum tail? Don’t be alarmed, just a haircut.

I have no long-term plans. I take things day-to-day. My MC in Sagittarius needs a goal, to fix things. I am an optimist, I don’t consider failure. It’s all about what can I do, what’s next to put back together. Mow the lawn, clear vines out of trees, tighten screws, make a pudding, find things, give things away. Draw, spill ink, see what it does. Full circle.

Merry eXmas

12.25.23

Truly Exmas this year, as our annual non-family get-together was cancelled due to unspeakable side effects of the unspoken poke situation.  I don’t know what it will take to break through this madness, but I have another booster friend today who is going for another in spite of the return of her thyroid cancer.  But, hey, why ruin everybody’s mood, okay?

As an upshot of the cancellation I was able to expand my cat-sitting commitment to include Christmas Eve through to the previously-agreed-to New Year’s Eve Eve.  The cat is a much needed respite from human contact. The house I am staying in is a lovely, ingenious, converted two-car garage, quite a step up from the one where I lived on Stone Avenue in Tucson, circa 1974-5.  In many ways, it’s just a straight trajectory, as that was where I had my first solitary home, my first 1957 VW 23-window Deluxe, my first organic garden.  

This neighborhood has delightful adventures a short walk in every direction, and I plan to take advantage when it isn’t raining.  An art supply store, a chi-chi shopping zone with eggnog latte option, a natural food grocery, a place where I can pick up a half-pint of carnitas, the place where I bought my tires.  I want them to check some damage I sustained hitting the newly-installed concrete bicycle barrier up the road before I take off again.  

Tonight, a brilliant pink-stripey sunset.  I brought sparkle snowflake ornaments and a short string of colored lights to spice things up, as the cat people didn’t deign to decorate the place they were not going to spend the holidays in.  

I’ll return for a night at home before picking up the now-New-Year’s-Day presents and heading up to see my friend at the Mobile Estates.  We will likely have Margaritas, I’ll pick up some Chicken Jalfrezi and Prawns Biryani to bring in the new year, then as soon as possible indulge in some thrift shopping and friendship.  

I have lately been playing with ink and brushes, and here is a little holiday-inspired invention.

ant-lers

12.11.23

Things are evolving. Turkey day was delightfully streamlined this year. I roasted a turkey breast dressed in bacon, found a jar of gravy in the freezer, stirred it into the drippings, it hit the spot. Simple perfection. My neighbor invited me for pumpkin pie and to meet her two new adopted cats. Then back to my paints and pens. There’s no commute.

The whole thing is to stay centered, relaxed and unopposed. There is a quiet relief here. Keep living your life like you mean it. Reinvent yourself, over and over. Restart. Restart. I get up, see if the sky is pink, wash the sleep from my eyes, make a cup of coffee, and write.

If I wake in the dark and can’t get back to sleep, which happens frequently, I stretch and exercise until I’m tired. If that doesn’t work I get up and write for a while. I’m not botherin nobody these days. It has always been about the writing. I can’t stop it. Drawing waits patiently on the balcony until the writing is done. Drawing demands a certain kind of romance, lighting, setting, a lag time, preparation. Writing barges onto any random page or scrap of paper, perhaps several at once; or here, on the virtual page. I have sketchbooks filled with writing. It’s the story of my life.

I scrounge for images to sandwich into these posts. I want it to be visually focused. That’s the point. I find things I had forgotten from long ago and sneak them in elsewhere, post-dated, and make up a story sifted from fifty pages of contemporaneous journaling. Somehow it makes sense, somehow there is a through-line that has a flow, from one post to the next. Sometimes there is an abrupt shift, or a repeat, or a gap centuries long when I stare off into the distance, watching crows in the tree tops and letting my coffee get cold again.

11.30.2023

I think too much. It upsets people. What I say, what I don’t say. It upset grade school teachers and other hierarchical thinkers. I could read, I liked words, I knew some math, I was not good at erasing. My Dad was a Lithographer. I got an F in coloring because I tried mixing CMYK with RYB crayons. My Mom was a nascent poet and we submitted her poem as my homework. I thought it odd, but it made her happy. I wanted to know things. I asked the wrong questions. I irked people with agendas. I used to rock and sing to assuage my discomfort. I lucked out. We were too poor to have psychiatrists at school.

I am a Horizontalist. I remember the days of the ubiquitous bumper sticker that said “Question Authority”. For me it is/was not just a bumper sticker, but a call to arms, or at least, to smirk.

Recent years have brought up a lot of soul searching. Since the complaint that I Just Go (aka the Irish Goodbye) I have taken it as a badge of honor. It’s not every day and every event that I can breeze through and socialize. I want to get out and be public, but sometimes I revert, I lurk, the weight becomes too much. It’s the same down up down, maybe not as far down, maybe a different kind of up, where I won’t go Crashing afterward. Maybe I’ll crash and recover, discover what made me uneasy, what the trigger was. For a long time I felt trapped in the unease, the sense of safety gone, returning to my possum holm to check for bite marks and splinters. Are those teeth marks yours? Or mine?

Look at that. I made my parents proud. I made them allies. The sun is out, the convo is too loud, I have to go for a walk.

leaves in the gutter, late november 2023

11.11.23

Stepping over another threshold. I have a plan: Stability, Frugality, Resilience, Self Reliance. My broken ankle made me cautious. I spent every day that summer drawing, learning to tell a story. I’m not trying to keep up with a world spinning out of control. I have a different set of priorities. It’s just a splinter in my aura, I have my memories, I can rewrite. I win again.

I hung on too long. I literally haven’t been there for over a year, save a brief stopover to pick up some random insults, and a stealth run for acrylic paint and brushes. The last full entry in the studio log was October 2022, when I painted and stenciled the floor with the rat-chew blue. I stayed too long, accidently caught up in creative bliss. I think something broke that day. I saw the dark side of the Welcome sign. On Thanksgiving I stopped in, just to look. The last entry, December 22, 2022, another portal, I grabbed a few pens, and wrote it out: “what if I what if i what if I NEVER CAME BACK.”

It was a Gift, but the price was too high. It was sanctuary, solace, but not safe. It took me hours to settle in, get in the groove, and there in the Magic Zone someone knocks on the door to tell me I’m Stupid. “Weren’t you leaving?” but not in a friendly way–and it comes to a screeching, ragged halt.

The miracle evaporates and I am broken again, the plan for a window goes out the window. Sublime calm, peace, and beauty pops like so much bubble wrap. Abraham Hicks talks about how as a child you carry all the sparkly light of creation within you and the Dull Gray World wants to drug you to sleep. I learned how to speak, how to answer, to sit in a chair and shut up. I just won’t.

It has been a long difficult month since I got home. I had been running, driving, camping out, and now here I am with no escape from myself. Did not think it could get sadder. I think I am such a badass, and a firm “Never” seemed good in the moment. But it has brought all sorts of feelings to the surface, heartbreak, grief, madness. To hear that there was a slim chance, that I could go back to that forest, see my Roofing House again–visit and camp in my special private parking space. I can’t believe it came to this. It seems crazy. I must be crazy to let it go. it’s heartbreaking.

Echoes of Howe Street, how I was suddenly sent away. I was so broken then I collapsed on the kitchen floor in a panic attack, sure I was losing everything. Even that was critiqued. My shop from Hell, and the demise. There is no going back, and no end now for me, to this bad dream I can’t seem to wake up from. What a waste-yes, I’m stupid. It was never mine.

It’s unbelievable. It’s a gut punch. It was so precious to me. I tried so hard. I put so much work and love into it, but no, I’m done. I have no need for most of what what I\is left there. It’s brilliant, it’s beautiful, I am such an artist. I got out alive. Let someone else enjoy it now.

102723

Just wandering these days. Someone said I have no goals, no ambitions. Not true, I try to sleep through the night, sometimes do. Another painting class, a couple of gigs, a couple of open mics. It’s comfortable, not a challenge. I am drawing most every day, but it isn’t resolving into much I can photograph. Hands, feet, basic forms and shading, crows, yes. Enjoying the used sketchbooks I have gleaned from various thrift stores, scrappy and stained with resolutions from new years long past.

Life has been very hard since I came home, and I can’t seem to kick myself out of the painful past. I never mention the struggle I went through, but it almost obliterated me. I write too much, then read it, trying to make sense of it, regurgitating the same meal over and over. It’s not pretty. The Artist’s Way recommends one write three pages every morning, and I returned to that practice while I was on the road. I am beginning to get a flow going, but often drivel, what I did yesterday, what i’ll do tomorrow.

Lots of creative interludes, though, rewiring a chandelier, sorting photographs, more clever repairs with Sugru. I’m longing to get back on the road. One thing I don’t have is a level, private place to park the van. I truly miss my old life in many ways, but nevermind. There are pleasures here. Indoor plumbing. . steak and applesauce. Coffee with whipping cream.

The sound of an owl in the redwood tree some nights. Five crows frantically harassing a big hawk that landed there. Monarchs searching for the milkweed that I planted but have yet to sprout. I brought home bags of free compost and filled the scrap wood planter bed. Maybe I’ll have carrots next year.

10.13.23

I’m actually in El Cerrito, but the little hill is kinda far away, and the Pub and Circus are right out my window. Plus, the weather app keeps telling me I’m in Kensington. Plus, I like the way it sounds. I’m here to feed ducks and put them away at night, and there is a cat, but he only comes to be fed, then disappears. Things are wonky, and the eclipse is imminent. I brought my fake Fender bass and a toy amp, I’ve been pulling out 3 or 4 old tunes every day to see if I remember them. Yup.

Not finding the solitude I hoped for. Every day a hike, a visit, the Farmer’s Market, the little store, a trip to town to get my costumes and gear for the gig at the festival, and now, an unexpected rehearsal.

Not much time for painting, so I am learning to paint faster and not belabor so much. I bought a watercolor block on my way back from Sheridan, I had been wanting to try the 10mm x 25mm landscape format, and the bright pink cover was a must have. When I got around to opening it, I was shocked! to see black paper! It took me a couple days to get sorted out–I was sort of disappointed, I had a plan. So, okay. I’ve painted on black before, I like black paper. Black gesso used to be a thing I did. I searched out my gouache and came up with a photo from a old calendar to paint.

So, when it was done I cut it off the block, and what? Oops! White paper! It has been a very long time since I bought a watercolor block, I don’t recall the bonus black cover sheet. Now I am faced with the same challenge. White paper! Funny! Another pivot. I was sort of disappointed. I had a plan . . LOL.

10.1.23

Back from the long drive. Some lovely stops along the way–before and after braving the thick smoke blowing west from the Anvil Fire–visible on the horizon over Floras Lake. Near Scotia I found a funky, sweet little campground in a stump forest. Definitely a change of season, chilly mornings and lovely nights for sleeping.

The trip to Oregon was spectacular, no further vehicular foibles, save the struggle to keep sufficient air in my tires. My neighbor loaned me a charger/compressor/inverter thing, and it took me a couple of tries (couldn’t figure out where I put the owner’s manual) to figure out how the digital air compressor worked. It had to cycle and check the pressure, then the button either needed to or did not need to be pushed again for the tires to fill. Very cool feature, the digital meter you set to the psi you need (65#), and it stores it, and shuts off automatically. Neat.

On the edge of October I have some local hangouts I have been/will be occupying. I went back to Varmint’s Garage and spent three nights and three days. Late Sunday for a 4 AM wakeup and drive to the surgery, then back–several delays had us home by about 3 on Monday. I’ll be spending a weekend about an hour up north for Open Studios and Margaritas; plus more thrifting, I suppose. Then a few days at home before I go to Duck-sit and catch some true solitude, and ponder where my next trip will take us.

As predicted I cut loose two extraneous sleeping bags, a duvet cover, a life vest, some cd’s. Snatched up a faux rattlesnake motorcycle jacket, a hat, two handblown red drinking glasses. I also picked up a couple of Sheffield pewter drinking flagons, inscribed in Gaelic, in case I find myself at another brew-friendly campout someday. I cut an inch more off my hair, too. It was driving me nutty how it stuck to the back of my neck. Someone said you can tell how bad a breakup was by how short you cut your hair. Not as bad as 1979 when I cut it to the thickness of my fingers against my scalp. But I was a drummer then, those were different times, as was the world I stepped into.