Yes, this is what you will get for awhile. My days are not my own. No more languorous wasting of hours contemplating artistic greatness. No more thoughts of pursuing artistic goals. Hell, I don't even have time for email. So I take my camera with me on my walks around my "new" neighborhood. Soon, these will be just as oppressive as the Covid photography I practiced during lockdown. Selavy. It is just how we are going to roll.
I don't know how I managed to manage my part of the factory floor and manage my studio, too. Where were the hours in the day? Where have they gone?
My mother is a zombie half the time. The other half, she issues forth moans with each exhalation. I try not to be maddened, but for one so accustomed to quietude and silence, this, in combo with the hours and hours of commercial t.v. . . well, my thoughts are scrambled.
And my diet is a mess. We've had plenty of comfort food. Today, I think, we will need to realign.
My mother's neighbors brought over dinner last night--chicken and dumplings with cornbread and apple pie. They are very sweet. They stayed for awhile, of course, and chatted. You know how such things go. Oh, they don't watch anything but OANN and Newsmax. They are big law and order people. Mom's neighborhood and the nice people who look after her. I smiled and sweated.
Mother just woke up. The t.v. comes on. Local news. Local weather. Those jolting, weird broadcast voices. The excruciatingly long, horrendous commercials. Babysitters of the aged. I believe one day they will discover that commercial television contributes to old age dementia. They probably already have, but like Global Warming, there is too much money involved to do anything about it. I feel I am already being affected.
The funny thing about today's photo is that you never see any children at play. They are all, I suppose, stuck to a computer screen. Nobody lets kids go outside now. Not on their own. The sign is a relic of days gone by.
I am going to suggest they put a pay phone next to it.
ReplyDeleteI rather enjoyed your stifling walks through Covid - and I'm not just saying that cause I like you and all.
Isn't that sort of endeavor meant to evoke - invoke - "feeling?"
You accomplished a bunch during that time - color tones - lots of emptiness - those lime green houses against that blue sky - when you drove to take pictures.
Set up shop at Ma's. Don't be shy. It may not start out exactly The story you started out wanting to tell but I can guarantee -- there will be a story when you are done.
Don't be afraid - you've already done everything hard and loved it -- you're a King. Get out there. When Ma can sit out with you and holler to the passerbyers.
FUCK. I'm not really telling you what to do. I smoked a pinner - I'm just musing.
Can you imagine me on the sales floor? with the art I was selling? and continue to talk about?
Oh, if I feel it I do -- and I just can't help myself. It oozes out and onto everyone who will give me their ear. I miss nibbling on an ear lobe.
It's a beautiful womb of a place - that place where you are just in your zone - lane - space. Mine is art. and prolly kittens and babies. good food. sunsets. weed. the beach. - shit. It sounds like I'm doing my "Our Time" profile.
I had a patient today who was beside herself with happiness. Prolly 65 or around there. I had never met her before and she proudly announced at check out she was getting married. She whipped out a photograph of her hunnybun - oh she was giddy. I sort of felt bad for myself. And that made me laugh inside (all this while she is going on and on and on "Doesn't he look just like his father?" We're getting married on the beach in October, pray it doesn't rain.").
I asked her where she met him and she said "Our Time." Her husband died of Alzheimers two years ago. Of course she was happy - she had just done some time. I then felt bad for thinking her sort of goofy.
To walk in another's shoes and all.
Hang in there Buddy Boy - you are another day through. Ma is too.
"my mother, always smiling, wanting us all
to be happy, told me, ‘be happy Henry!’
and she was right: it’s better to be happy if you
can
but my father continued to beat her and me several times a week ..."
- excerpted
x