Friday, Jan. 14
We've had good weather, so I got a lot of work done this week. It is good to stay busy. I've dialed back on the internet as of late. The news and current events are just too damn depressing. Every story is the tale of one more collapse, one more warning, one more draconian new rule, one more rotten bastard holding office. More idiocy, and more insanity. Individuals and institutions alike are collapsing under the stress. And it is global. There is no escape from it. How long can this go on? How much worse will things get?
I had a dental appointment Tuesday. They won't let you in the office without checking your temperature, and answering a questioner. So I stood outside, and called the office on the flip phone. The receptionist came out wearing a face shield, and one of those hideous N95 cones strapped over a paper mask. I couldn't hear anything she said. She tried to hand me a paper mask. She may as well have tried to hand me a snake. I said, "No. I'll wait outside instead." I sat in the bed of the truck, and waited. May, the hygienist, opened the door and called me in a few minutes later. The receptionist hid in the back while I went in. May ran the ATM card for me when we were done so I wouldn't have to put my naked face near the receptionist. I am so fucking sick of this.
There are two radioactive thoughts. They are thoughts on which one dares not dwell. They are forbidden because they quickly generate poisonous levels of rage, and futility:
1) All this shit was done to us, and is being done to us deliberately. This global disaster is no accident. It is the single greatest crime in human history.
2) We will not see an end to this nightmare in the time we have remaining to us.
But of course you can't forbid yourself to think about something. It's the old kids' trick: "Try not to think of elephants. Try as hard as you can!" Of course you'll end up thinking of elephants all day. Just like the two forbidden thoughts.
And my own mental health is bad, and getting worse. I seldom leave the grounds anymore, except for bike club, and the occasional errand. I can't bear the sight of the faceless. I see these idiots in their cars, on the street, at the beach, all masked up. I get that slow panic feeling like I'm trapped in a bad movie, and I can't get out. Every goddamn pic on the internet is a masked face. I feel like the main character in that science fiction story, "I want to scream but I have no mouth." And this, of course, feeds into the two forbidden thoughts, It's a feedback loop, just like sticking a microphone into a loudspeaker.
And, truth to tell, I'm scared of getting bad sick, also. My bout with the flu four years ago is still fresh in memory. I was violently ill for a long time. It took out my hearing. I have the hearing aids charging away on my desk to remind me. I don't want to go through something like that again.
There are times when I can sort of metabolize the rage and frustration into sadness. Sadness is easy. But more and more, it's all filtering down into hopelessness. Futility. Anger.
I pray a lot. Prayers of worship and for guidance open my every morning, and prayers of gratitude for my many blessings close each day before sleep. But Faith has been a strangely lonesome quest. None of my friends is a believer. Some have a vague belief, but most are casual atheists. (not the angry kind) Questions of Faith simply do not occur to them. It isn't a feature of their inner landscape. Mary, my beloved wife, is Buddhist. She is a devout practitioner, not a new age bimbo.
But at the same time, almost all my on-line friends are Christian, almost all of them are Roman Catholic, and a good many of those are converts. My list of bookmarks looks like a who's who of dissident Catholics. It seems every time I discover a writer who has his head on straight I add another Catholic to the list. But there is no one in person to talk to.
Anyway, let's get back to the stone.
As I wrote last week, one of the rewarding parts of working a stone is that the amount of visible progress per session increases as you get closer to finishing. Now, most of the through cuts are done, the basic form is all established, and I'm working on refining curves, thinning walls and planes for the light, and taking out the rough spots, and flat spots. The carving looks just like I expected it to look, and that is a good thing.
Well, almost.
Sat, Jan 15
One of the difficulties in any long term project is that you get so close to the work that you can't see it. You've read, and re-read your story so many times that you can recite the whole thing in your sleep, yet it takes someone else, reading it for the first time, to recognize the flaws. The same thing can happen with a drawing, a painting, or a sculpture. You think you see where you're going, but it's like riding a bike with your eyes fixed on the front wheel instead of the road. Sometimes seeing a photograph of the work in progress will give you fresh eyes.
In our house, there's a bathroom right off the kitchen, and the bathroom window opens onto the back porch. My table is right off the back porch. When I was working the stones twenty years ago I would often pause, go into the bathroom off the kitchen, and open the window so I could see the table and the work in progress reflected in the medicine cabinet mirror. I had forgotten this little trick until this last week.
Oh, holy cow. Wait. This can't be. Can it? Suddenly I was seeing this thing for the very first time. Gnarled. Goblinesque. Trollish. It was startling how "new" the piece looked to me.
Not only was it, "new", it was grotesque, lop-sided, and wonderfully ugly. Seeing this was very much like hearing your own voice on a cheap tape recorder. Holy cow, do I sound like that ? *yikes*
Now, ugly isn't necessarily bad, and doesn't always have evil connotations. Some sorts of ugly have a peculiar, and endearing charm. Think of some of the odd breeds of little dogs, like Pugs or Shar Peis. Think of the weird reptiles, insects, and slimy things things people keep in cages, and aquariums.
On the other hand, think of the mayor of Chicago.
But art, for me, is about beauty. There is something holy about creating beauty. There is something unholy about adding more ugliness to life. So what shall become of this strange stone troll? Will it squat triumphant on the pedestal of some gallery? Or sulk on a shelf in my back room?
Will people find it creepy, and vaguely repulsive?
Or maybe funky, and endearing. Hard to tell.
Sunday, Jan. 16
I'll close this week's post on an upbeat note. Today was one of those rare So Cal days when the sky is overcast, but the day is unseasonably warm, and the air is extraordinarily clear. I put the tools up about ten thirty this morning because Dave from our club, RatRod Riders B/C of Southern California, pulled up with his bike in the bed of the truck. President Troy rolled up a minute later. Dave is making a brave, and totally badass recovery from a bout with cancer, and pneumonia. He rode his electric assist trike on our last couple of gatherings. Today, for the first time, he brought a real bicycle. We packed up, and took our bikes down to the Greenway Trail, and did a slow, sweet ten miles on the bike path. Afterwords, Dave was beat, and just headed home. But he did it. Troy hung out for dinner. We burned a couple of bowls, and threw chicken on the fire. Life is Good.
