that explains so much

I hesitate to share this, I'm not usually the sharing kind, but I made a passing reference a while ago to some felonies that afflicted my family and then declined, somewhat unfairly, to elaborate, and a recent conversation with a friend reminded me that whenever I do elaborate, however haltingly, the response is usually “that explains so much” so I’ve decided to do that. Elaborate. Haltingly. Personally, I don’t know what these things “explain” – after all these years they remain mysterious to me, but here they are. Cue the violins.

When I was 5 or 7 (I don't remember which) I was molested by a stranger and testified about it. I think the testifying was worse than the assault. I have had PTSD for almost 50 years and have only recently begun to realize, first, that I have it, and second, the many ways that it has truncated and compromised my life.

When I was a freshman in college, my youngest aunt was in a bad marriage and wanted a divorce. Her husband had a different idea. While she and a friend were packing so she could leave the marriage, the husband came in and shot them both. She died, he survived. And, insult to woeful injury, the husband used my aunt’s credit card to buy the gun he killed her with so, of course, her estate — i.e., the family — received the bill for it. Tacky, tacky.

On Columbus Day weekend in 1976, my brother died in a drowning accident.

Sometime between my aunt being murdered and my brother’s inexplicable death, one of my cousins was beaten to death and no one was ever identified, arrested, or tried as the perpetrator.

In 1980, our tenant, a friend of the family for almost my entire life, was gang-raped, beaten with rocks, and left to die in the street. She somehow managed to crawl home and — after several hours of delay — my parents got the police to take her to a hospital, where she didn't die. The first thing she remembers about it is hearing “Let’s get the white bitch;” the last thing is “Let’s get out of here, man, she’s dead.” She didn't press charges, and she also has PTSD.

From about the time that I was 16 until Iwas 32 I had endometriosis, which meant that I spent 3 to 5 days out of every 28 on the floor waiting for the pain to stop. I had three surgeries for it. The third and last, a hysterectomy when I was 32, let me know what it was to be without physical pain or the constant anxiety of "how bad will it be this time?" I sent the surgeon flowers a year after the surgery. I have never been so grateful to anyone (outside of my family) in my life.

And generational things happened – in the 1980s many of my friends died of AIDS. So many that when one friend died of a simple heart attack I wasn't sure I’d heard correctly. But many people lost many people in the 80s.

An old friend was on the first plane that hit the World Trade Center. But, again, many people lost many people in the events of 9/11.

In 2007, as my father was dying, finally of his third cancer,
I took him off life support and stayed with him until he passed. This past spring, as my mother was dying of grief and age, I tried, but mostly failed, to give her a safe and comfortable passing.

People ask how I go on. I don’t know. Moment by moment, I suppose, like anyone else, and often not very well. I wake up. I’m not dead. So far, so good. I put on clothes. Feed the cats. Feed the birds. Go to work. Come home. Do it again the next day. Try, always try, to practice forgiveness and compassion. Forgiveness and compassion are difficult practices. Have a sense of proportion -- mine is still a middle-class American life, not subsistence (at best) in a Darfuri refugee camp.

I sometimes say, jokingly, that my family is like the Kennedys but without money or influence. Money and influence are, obviously, no safeguard against woe, but
I imagine they do assuage some aspects of this coarse and bumpy thing called living.

I don’t usually hold with dripping this all over people. It makes you feel bad and makes me feel no better. But there you have it. The things that explain so much.

Moving on, now.

solstice musing

While wandering about some favorite blogs, I was reminded that today is the solstice. For some reason I was then reminded -- and glad to be reminded -- of the Desiderata (attributed to Max Ehrman) that was everywhere in my youth. So I'm sharing these good thoughts on this long, cold, dark, night when the wheel of the year makes its first turn toward spring.

Go placidly amidst the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for there will always be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe; no less than the trees and the stars, you have the right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labours and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul. With all its sham drudgery and broken dreams it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

thar she blows II

I seem to have gone public. On page 84.
As always, my photography leaves much to be desired (and my scanner is down for the count), but here's the general idea:

I'd say "at a newsstand near you" but there seems to be some difficulty locating newsstands with copies of this, the second issue of Art Quilting Studio. But the magazine is out, and opportunities to contribute abound, so if you can't track down the magazine, check out Somerset's website.

couldn't be happier

I have noticed recently, whilst driving all these great distances up and down and around the Hudson Valley and environs, crows. Or maybe ravens, but I think crows.

I have always loved crows. There's a park across the street from my house and one of the big old trees there was a roost tree -- until the West Nile epidemic in 2005. Since then, virtually no crows. But recently, and so very happily, I have begun to see them again.

Last year, I noticed one or two or, at most, three at a time. This year, small flocks. This is a very unscientific sampling, but I am so happy about it. Crows.

co-incidence

What a coincidence -- according to to day's post over at The Writer's Almanac , today is the day that Moby Dick was first published -- to no acclaim whatsoever. A "damp drizzly November in my soul" and a case of a prophet being without honor in his own country indeed.

I was thinking a lot about the book today. My friend Denise and I went to the Dia in Beacon -- and it was glorious. But also very, very white. Rooms full of extremely ascetic paintings by Robert Ryman -- white paintings on white walls, which are purely about the paint itself and the painting's relationship to & with the wall (or other supports). Years ago, I saw an exhibition of his paintings in San Francisco and was so baffled I asked the guard if the paintings had been hung. What a difference two decades makes in my willingness to understand. I was very enthusiastic about the paintings but was interested to find that the longer I spent in the room, the more unsettled I was becoming by All That White. And I wondered if the oft-quoted line in MD "It was the whiteness of the whale that appalled me" has as much to do with the epic size of the whale as with its unnatural color.

But the most transcendent thing in the museum, I think, is Richard Serra's Torqued Ellipses -- four huge vessels (as Denise calls them) in a room only just big enough to contain them that have profound mythic, shamanic presence. From the website: " in these works space shifts and moves in wholly unpredictable and unprecedented ways: so destabilizing yet so beguiling is this sensation of movement that the spectator quickly gets caught up in an exploration of extended duration." Walking around and into these works was like walking into the womb of the time-- disorienting, then exalting.

Then there were several -- I don't know what to call them -- pieces? works? by Fred Sandback who is probably at the most extreme edge of minimalism. The works are simply outlines formed by tautly strung acrylic yarn. They create the illusion of glass panels, but there is literally nothing there.

About Sandback, also from the museum's website: "The first sculpture I made with a piece of string and a little wire was the outline of a rectangular solid . . . lying on the floor. It was a casual act, but it seemed to open up a lot of possibilities for me," Fred Sandback wrote in 1986, looking back over twenty years of activity to a seminal sculpture he had executed in 1966. The key implications of that determining impulse remain at the heart of his practice today. In wanting to create sculpture that did not have an inside, he found through this seemingly "casual act" the means to "assert a certain place or volume in its full materiality without occupying and obscuring it."

This experience of looking at something that was simultaneously there and not there was really delightful. I thought pieces were very playful. I used to not like being played with in this way, but I hope that as my understanding and appreciation of the goals of artists that I found and find challenging grows, that I will continue to be less troubled by the feeling that I'm being had in some nefarious and mean-spirited way and be more genuinely engaged.

It was a wonderful day -- lots to think about, much inspiration, and a good time with a good friend.

macro II

hmmmmm. This is a lot more dynamic in my mind. Well, it's still early days. These are some of the things I've been thinking about attaching. Twigs (imported from Massachusetts), twine, shiny metal rounds. The cats knocked over a stack and some photocopies of that hand tumbled out, so I thought I'd put one down and see what I think. And I think . . . maybe. I think it may be -- all together now -- too much color.

The eternal conversation of art vs. craft arose recently over at Karen's place. I was reminded -- several years ago, I worked a needlepoint (kit) of the fairly famous quotation from William Morris: "Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." I find the verbs provocative (a reliable function of verbs). I think you can know if something is beautiful, not just believe it. On the other hand, I have a three-story house stuffed to and beyond the gills with a plethora of things that may or may not be useful -- and I find that much harder to gauge with any accuracy.

And so to bed, leaving both twigs and philosophy for another time.

macro progress I

I still don't have a source photo. Nevertheless, I think I'm making excellent progress on interpreting it. Don't you? Thus far, I have a foundation piece approximately 12 inches by 18 inches comprised of a backing fabric (grayish off-white), white low-loft batting, a single layer of cheesecloth, and all-over seed stitching in grey carpet thread. That's a whole World Series, plus a couple of evenings, worth of stitching (minus a little time diverted to exuberance about a happy outcome for the home team). Here's a detail, almost life-size:

I think what comes next is kitchen twine, metallic silver thread, slim-slim-slim twigs, and some of the metal bits I've found in the street and in drawers, and in tins in the closets. Maybe some glass. But if there's glass, there will need to be a reinforcing layer to support the weight. More cheesecloth, definitely more cheesecloth.

Never let it be said that I don't know how to have a good time.