Cold Cruising, Rocks, and Storybooks  

 

What we started with

Work on the stone has been a little sketchy this week. It has been cold (for So Cal) so I'm not getting out to the table until late in the morning. Too, I've been trying to get out on the bike more often. At this advanced age one falls out of shape very quickly.  The local bike path is nearly finished, so now I can get in a good twelve mile cruise every day, or two without having to ride on  any major surface streets.  

It's not as though I'm working to a deadline, or anything, but taking that cruise slows everything down. It means either getting a late start on the art, or an putting an early ending to the work sessions. 

Here's where we left off last week. 

I opened up the cone a little farther. Now, the job is working  that flat, suction cup face into the irregular curves of a blossom. I'm retaining as much of the ragged, "natural" shape of the rock as I can.  If rocks bloomed this would be the flower.

Sun. 2/19/23

Got together with the bike gang, Saturday, for twenty six  miles on the fat tires. We rode the Santa Ana river from right around Angel Stadium, down to just a couple miles short of the beach. I hadn't been on this stretch of the river trail since the late 1970's. Back then, I'd take my single speed Schwinn Spitfire out in the morning,  cruise my way down to Anaheim, and pick up the Santa Ana River Trail right there at Angel Stadium. I'd ride the trail all the way down to Huntington, then slog it back home up Beach Boulevard for total of just over fifty miles.

Saturday's ride covered about half that distance. I rode all day on the Santa Ana Trail expecting to see some small thing that would light up a memory. It has all changed. There was nothing familiar at all. And twenty five miles in the cold and wind just kicked my ass. I've been flopped all day today.

 I finished up CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia the other day. I was sad to see the series come to an end, and not just because of the sad ending of the World of Narnia.

 Turning an eye to the ongoing mess of news, current events, and commentary is just disheartening. Too much exposure to it brings on this free-floating sense of dismay.  I still look through the bookmarks every morning, but I'm reading less and less. I quickly reach a point where my eyes glaze out of focus, and my attention just evaporates. I return to the same conclusion: The world as we knew it ended with Trump's "two weeks to flatten the curve" speech. The covid panic may have abated, but that was only the first shot in this war.

"The world is in a bad way, my man, and bound to be worse before it mends; ..." 

And so it is, and all signs point to the worsening.  I don't have the four or five centuries to wait it out. I doubt if I have two decades. My generation will not see an end to it in our lifetimes. And there is not a whole heck of a lot we can do about any of it.  Accept what you cannot change; change what you can, and all that. I can change my focus. I can turn away. Reading is a way out, and  CS Lewis was on my bookshelf.

 Reading Narnia was just plain fun. And, at first  it seemed like it would be fun to write about it. But I had barely touched the keyboard, when I got time-jacked straight back to Cal State Fullerton, where the penalty for reading any piece of literature was five type-written pages minimum.  Or worse, a final exam bluebook prompt: 

Discuss the theme of Redemption in CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. Compare and contrast similar themes in the work of two other authors from this semester's reading list.

That's pushing forty years ago.  Even so, that routine killed off any interest I had in books or reading for a very long time. As soon as I hit the keyboard I found myself trying to write term paper prose. I'm not going to do it. I'll make a few notes on what I enjoyed, and why.

The Chronicles of Narnia provided me with a most welcome escape, but the magic of Narnia was not  the magic of talking animals, or witches' spells. In Narnia,  Evil can be directly confronted fought, and, with great effort,  defeated. The avatar of God can speak to us directly. That there could be a place where there was no history for thousands of years sounds pretty good to this old bastard.

But. Getting back to that redemption thing. I like the broad brush with which Lewis paints his characters. I liked the way that  his heroes: Edmund, in particular, start out as perfect little shits, yet grow to become worthy kings. It's a good lesson for the young, and a good reminder for the aged, like myself.  At seventy years, it is quite easy to look back through your resume, and find stuff that makes you wince, and cringe. It is comforting to be reminded that the Lion is forgiving to those who own their wrongs, and change their ways. I try.

And I like the way that Lewis reminds us that not all will be redeemed. The blind dwarfs in the last book have chosen their lot. They sit at a sumptuous feast in the glory of fresh air and a warm sum. Yet they believe them selves confined to eating garbage in a lightless stable. Those who have ears hear the music of Creation. Others, like Uncle Andrew,  hear only unpleasant noise: 

[Uncle Andrew] had disliked the song very Much. It made him think and feel things he did not want to think and feel.

 This resonated with me. I can recall the time when any mention of Christianity just gave me the creeps and the willies. That time is past, and I have become a Believer, albeit feral.

I don't know if there is anything more to say. But treating a story like a dead bird bird on dissection tray just gives me the creeps and the willies.

And now, thanks to the cruel, and remorseless taunts of Will, and Julie, I've embarked on that grim voyage aboard the Pequod, and I'm laboring beneath Ahab's scowl, and Ishmael's verbosity. All goofing aside, here. I'm about halfway through Moby Dick. It isn't nearly the monster I remember, and (don't tell anyone) It's actually a heck of a good story. Maybe some notes on The Whale, next week.