your rights

 

Dear People,

All there is now is crying and fear.  An endless plain of suffering that Republicans have wrought for us. 

Ray Bradbury said that we should be feeling when we write, not thinking.  My feelings are a huge burning ball of rage and despair, and articulate words are not easily formed from this magma.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson tells me that just 16 Republicans could stop this abuse and terror; that 23 of them could remove our hateful dying President.  Know this, that if you come around me and I find out you are a Republican or that you sympathize with any flavor of conservative racist crap, it will be the last time you see me.  I will not be doing any forgiveness, no exceptions, no "but they didn't realize."  I won't even be discussing it, there will just suddenly be an empty space where I was.

The thing that you know, in the core of your existence, is that any power you wield as a human, your height, your wealth, your weight, your intelligence, your brawn, your speed, your keen eyesight, your anything, must MUST be used to shield and protect the people less powerful than you.  Our responsibility is to take care of others and not to harm them.  This is it.  The whole thing, the whole state of being human.  Ask yourself if you are one and know your rights.

 

Anhedonia.

 

Dear Others,

I fell into a space, a largeish one, filled with unimaginable sadness.  I thought I might have read it in the calligraphy of clouds, which is very readable this time of year, even in the shorter daylight, or maybe because of it.  It holds, this time, for sure, the coming gloom, the chill, the end of at least the year, and maybe many other things that we daren't consider.  But, as I said, the clouds might give us the message even while we bustle around trying to avoid it.

Maybe sadness isn't the word, isn't the place.  Maybe the place is pathos.  Or my favorite, abject melancholia.  To be sure, I was reading about a case of the AMs.  An author that is now dead and gone.  

Now another thing I read or heard, Laurie Anderson saying that we must not be sad, only feel sad.  It was a distinction I hadn't kenned before, and sometimes I still don't.  She said, I think, that it was a tenet of Buddhism.  Or perhaps I imagined that she said it and I read it in the clouds?

I try to maintain these two separately; the feeling and the being, I really do, but the gaping hugeness of what I think must be everyone's sadness, is sometimes unavoidable. If you are like, or like I have been, you will micro analyze your blue snit, your dark brow, until you fear actual madness.  What we are supposed to do, say the sages, is to make space even for this, this yawning horror, to feel it, not to scrutinize it silly.  

Ah but, you still may try to; you are clever, you are smart, you will outfox this feeling.  You might, perhaps, suffer from anhedonia; a word I am obsessed with since I read it a few years ago.  Anhedonia, anhedonia, my country 'tis of thee!  If you Google it, chances are you will see that you have it too.  

But again, you are smart; you know, because of your monkey cleverness, that people don't really respond to your work, to that which is your messy self, they just like the outward you; and of course they do, because you are endlessly seeing to their comfort, feeling for them, telling them what you'd like to hear:  you are fine, you are well, you are acceptable by every metric!  You are good.

Sticky wickets all around.  Try out this concept:  Beautiful Mess Effect.

It's a balm, for certain, but, it doesn't take away the cavern of sorrows.  It's like a missing limb, you learn to live with, next door to, around, the cavern, I guess.  Because of our really serious case of anhedonia.  Because of the calligraphy of the clouds.  Because of the light.  Because of time.

Making lemonade out of coal.

Dear Glad You Asked and Been Meaning to Say,

I am not even remotely over it.  I sometimes don't think about it, but it comes out of nowhere and hits me like a ton of bricks, which I have noticed have little words and phrases stamped into them.  Things like 'well, now what?' and 'futility,' and 'wellerschmertz.'  If I ignore these bricks, more come along, which only proves their wretched little points.  Beware the bricks.

I am going to get a sofa that people can stay in my studio on- overnight.  It's not an easy decision.  Many things will have to be removed, re-located, given away, in order for the space to accommodate a making down of a pallet on the floor.  An artist pines for years to have a dedicated space- a space without a washer and dryer in it, or mice, or a dresser full of clothes, or shovels and hoes.  A place that is only for making.  I set mine up for that, and for reading, but only for reading the 'right' kind of books- theory, and picture books, dictionaries in various languages.  I made shrines to the things I cared for in it- photos of people, birds and animals;  rocks, leaves, dirt, shells, seeds, sticks, and the red powder they use in India.

Still, what use are secret shrines anyway?  Who would be the initiates that might see such sacred spaces?  There is a very nice* bakery in Los Alamos, and the bathroom has a little Joan Didion shrine in it.  And isn't that the right kind of place for a shrine?  A place that people visit?  I think putting people to bed in my shrine-filled studio could be a step in the right direction; although I remain far from certain about the right direction; sharing a space surely cannot be worsening things, can it?












*  Par exemple, they make terrific canelés AND fabulous pretzels.  Imagine mastering both of those, and consider how wonderful the croissants and bread must also be.





PS 
Make a few more pallets....  One, two, three, four, & five.

An Elegy for Today.

Dear Dears,

I want you to know Einaudi, because I am very fond of him, and you will love him too.  It's important, too, because his is one of the voices of our mourning.  If you have been knocking around these pages you will be familiar with the Dodo's twin obsessions with Our Robot Overlords and What Are We to Do With Our Sadness About The World. 

I am still working on what can be done with our sadness, but something like this seems to address the issue.  As for the Robot Overlords, well, you know what you can do with them.