I parked next to this supremely ugly tesla truck in the grocery store parking lot. It has all the look of a war machine. Much bigger and much uglier than its pictures. I was too far behind the tall, handsome man getting into it to ask about the statement on the side and back, or whether the engine really fits between those two front wheels, or why he wanted to own it, or what he thought of Musk, or…… Maybe next time I will postpone my shopping to quench my curiosity.
Then back home on my walk around the neighborhood. Much better.
I did a few more drawings for the pages depicting leaves.
Early this morning I had a follow-up CT scan. I need to get two a year for the next two years. I hope I am remembering that correctly because I tend to shut down my hearing when it comes to the medical side of things. Then off to chair yoga after sitting still and trying to talk myself into not going and just having a nap. Chair yoga won the discussion. I was simply too tired to make a good case for skipping an activity with health benefits. I did sit in the parking lot there and think about turning around and going home. But I got out of the car in time to ask a couple going in if there was a rule as to how long one could sit in the parking lot and try to find an excuse to go home. He said, “You’re here now, just go in the door!” Good advice.
Tomorrow is poetry. I am taking in a follow-up of the recent poem about Proust. Not sure I posted it here, so will repeat it now.
Proust
It is one of those days
when I am compelled to pull
Remembrance of Things Past
From the bookshelf.
I have never read it cover to cover.
And bought it only to open randomly,
just to see how many words
he squeezes between commas.
How much he has to say,
in page-long paragraphs,
that force me to start over again
in search of meaning.
And so public about his passions!
His pen must have flown
across the pages,
shuttling emotions from heart to paper.
Never once thinking them too private,
too personal,
or too uninteresting
to those who he will never know.
Within the hour, I am exhausted.
Close the book and promise myself
to care enough
to write it down.
So tomorrow I take in these older sculptures along with this writing of explanation.
The words I will read:
Art under the influence of Proust S. Webster
“I suffer the worst withdrawal
that might follow
a recent repetition my
daydreams have allowed
that
few small triumphs
have
tarnished from the
trap
of self-fulfilling fantasy.”
This is written in the fragmented phrases glued to a ribbon under tension and looped between two pullies (one behind the other) that are fixed into a carved slot in a stick of wood. They extend below the slot like wheels that let me roll the words forward as I read.
An open-fronted case of what looks like three volumes. Their spines are titled, Lost I, Lost ll, and Lost lll. When pulled from the case they reveal themselves to be boxes with flip top lids that open to a maze having an antique marble following the open doorways through chambers with text on the top of the walls. We follow along and read as we go.
Lost l Suddenly everything is lost
“She had no idea
what had happened to
her knowledge no longer
believed to be stuck in the darkest corner of her
mind. Everything
is lost.”
Lost ll It is lost, lost, LOST
“Again he recalled to his mind
that all
his knowledge and memory
would be forgotten and the bitter disappointment would
yield to the inevitable
all is LOST”
Lost lll I am desperately lost
“I never thought I would have
forgotten
this distant coming and going
of my mind and I will not have patience to accept
that I must have lost my way.”
The clunking sound the marble makes as it bumps into walls to find passageways to the next hallway is so much like what stumbling sounds make as we search for words.
I like these two pieces. I like even more how they made me feel when I made them. And now, at eighty years of age, I like the incessant bumping into walls by the marble trying to find words of meaning. It is like writing.
Right now I am part way into a new short story of an elderly man…scrap that! Old man.
When a memory occurs to him, he can only come up with one word relating to it. So, carrying on a conversation is impossible. One word he uses repeatedly and with emphasis is, “fuck”. What else would he say when all else fails? The only way his story gets told or the only way he will matter is totally in my hands. I wish I did not like him so much. I wish I could just leave him partially present on the first two blue-lined yellow legal pad pages buried under a couple of sketchbooks. I wish he would stop whispering, “fuck, fuck, fuck.”
But he does matter. So I will go back to following him around if only to see what happens next to frustration, anger, hopelessness, etc. in the lonely life of someone I can learn from.
Better get back to fulfilling my desire to get 7,000 steps in each day.
Til later….