On Days After Rain

 

Friday, 2/3/23

We got a break from the rain this week, but it's been cold, for So Cal- 46 degrees this morning. It's  sunny and clear, but the temps are hanging in the 60's. Buddy the Cat is back to being his noisy self, and I'm much grateful for that.  I got a little work done on the stone.

 

I did not have great ambitions on this project, but I like how it's turning out.  After the Aerodyne project I wanted an easy, free form, improvisational exercise, sort of make-it-up-as-I-go-along. 

  

I wanted a break after taking exact measurements, and working to a plan.  

 

 

 

I'm pleased with the flower-like form that's emerging from this odd wedge of stone, but between the crappy weather, and my dull, flat humor, the project is lurching along in starts and stalls. Whether you plan it all ahead, or plan it as you go, you still gotta' plan. Can't get anywhere if you don't know where you want to go. So, I'm taking some long sit-and-stare sessions before chowing into this much farther.

I just nuked several paragraphs of dark, and melancholy musings about death, the purpose of Life, and the nature of cyber friendships. VanderLeun is gone. We have all been very fortunate to have been a part of the event that was American Digest. But it's over. The community will dissolve in time. Some of us will stay in touch in the way we do with our on-line friends. We'll lose touch with others. That's just how it goes. I do not want to lose touch with the group, but I'm not looking to replace the time I spent there with another site, another host, another community. Truth to tell, I am sick of internet, and bone weary of the passing world. I'm going to tune out, and turn to other things.

 Remember books? Odd how things get started. A couple weeks back I had to take Mary to Kaiser for cataract surgery. It  meant several hours sitting and waiting in the truck, or somewhere on the Kaiser campus. No fun.  I got the great idea that a book would be just the thing. Haven't read one in a while. On my bookshelf I had a new, unopened, and unabridged copy of The Chronicles of Narnia. All the books in one big volume. I had never read them. Why not?

The books have been a blessing during this episode of low spirits. Lewis is an easy read. There is depth enough to the stories to keep them from becoming idle entertainment, but you don't need to do a line by line exegesis on them to suss out the hidden meanings. And I love his absolutely horrid English brats. 

This is reading for escape; escape is fine with me right now.  I remember when I was in the fifth grade, devouring Tom Swift Junior books, and getting completely absorbed into that science fiction world that surely I'd live to see by the time I was eighteen. I really wish I'd have found the  Chronicles of Narnia back then.  

And right now? Believe me, if could walk through a gateway into Narnia... but of course, I'm much too old for that. Once you reach a certain age you can no longer cross through the portals.  And in much the same way, once you reach a certain age you can delight in the stories, appreciate them from many points and perspectives, but you can't be absorbed into the world of Narnia in the way you could when you were crossing the line between single, and double digit birthdays.  There is no going back, and no going through. Even so, I count myself fortunate that I can still feel a little wistful about it. The fires aren't out just yet.

Sunday, 2/5/23

Today started cold, wet, and rainy. And being the first Sunday of the month it was Cyclone Coaster day.  February is "Bring a Lady" for the monthly antique and classic ride. Everyone brings out their best girls' bike for the ride. I was going to bring the 1956 Schwinn Starlet.

 But like I said, it was cold and raining, so I brought the 1961 Rat bike instead.

 The rain let up before I got to the freeway. It was cold and crappy when I got to Long Beach, but I dressed for the cold. I always go down early, and park in Belmont shore, a couple of miles away from  where we meet up for the ride. I found a parking place (not always easy) Got the truck locked, and rolled down Bayshore to take a pit stop before hitting the bike path. Path was empty. I hit a wake n' bake and took a quiet dreamy cruise in the early morning haze.

By the time I reached the meet up, the sun was out. Penny, Troy, Russ, and Dave were all there. All in all, some  twenty, or thirty folks showed up for the event. By the time we rolled it was too warm for the heavy coat.  By the time we stopped for lunch it was like this.

(HT Penny for the pic)

This made for a wonderful day. But no Cyclone Coaster ride is complete for us until we make our last stop on the bike path for an ice cream at the Batman catering truck. Between the time that we ordered our ice cream, and finished the cones the wind rose up sharp, cold, and stiff.

Now wind can be your best friend or a nasty adversary on a bike ride. It depends entirely on which way the wind is blowing, relative to one's direction of travel. Riding with a tail wind is one of those sweet little pleasures that make life worth living.  Once you're at speed with the wind the ride is effortless and quiet. The air around you is so still you could light a smoke with a paper match. It feels like flying. I had about three and a half miles of it, and it was good. Traffic going home was light and fast.

Mary had pork and onion stew on the stove when I got home. She served it up in sourdough bread bowls. After dinner, a hot shower, and a bite on the bong, I sat in the green chair with a cup of hot coffee, and the book. Buddy the Cat hopped up in my lap to read along. There is much to be grateful for.

 

 

 

  Days Between Rain

Dockweiler

Last Thursday, the 26th, I noticed that Buddy the Cat was was limping, favoring his left hind leg. Friday, the 27th,  I had my bestest ol' pal in the world at the vet.  County Line opens at 7:30. I was on the phone with them at 7:29, and in the office two hours later.

It scares me how much I love that silly beast.

When we lose a loved one, the grief and shock hit so hard that it leaves us numb. It's like a protective shield that rises in the face of devastating truth. Sometimes the first phase of it is a strange giddiness, almost euphoria, like a hit of speed to keep you from crashing out. The true pain leaks out slowly over many, many days.

There is no such shield with the loss of a pet. The pain is immediate, intense, and overwhelming. I've been reduced to a sobbing child more than once  by it. But the doc said Buddy the Cat will be OK. He's eleven years old. It looks like he didn't quite make a jump up, and fell on his butt; sore, but not injured. 

 Friday evening I got the news that Gerard VanderLeun had passed away. I knew it was imminent; nonetheless, it's a blow that still has me numb.

 Our lives are defined by love. The depth of love I feel for my wife, my friends, and family, and my pets is terrifying. There are times when I think I'd rather lose my own life than go through the pain of losing any one of them. The loss of our dear friend Gerard, has hammered this home like a nail through the flesh.

I had promised Troy,  president of our bicycle gang, that we could carpool out to Redondo Beach for a club ride 9:30 Saturday morning. Otherwise, I'd have stayed home. The South Bay beaches are a long, and often miserable drive from here. Troy got over to the house around 8:00 am. We loaded up the bikes, drove over to Molcasalsa for breakfast burritos ($2.39!) and hit the  freeway. National Weather Service had Redondo at 61 degrees for the day, with  clouds and wind. Penny, and Dave were  waiting for us on a side street off Coast Highway. We bundled up, and prepared to give ourselves Hard Core Prizes for a cold, windy ride.

Our coats were off within the hour. Friday had been cold and shitty.  Saturday was a jewel. Temps were somewhere in the mid seventies, the air as clear as January. Most people were out in shorts. Everyone was grabbing a chance to get out before the next storm rolled in, Sunday. We rode from Redondo north through Hermosa, Manhattan, and then the bleak Dockweiler, right under the take-off zone from LAX. 

Dockweiler

HT Penny for the pics.

We stopped at opulent Marina Del Rey. Time was, we'd have have continued up into Venice beach, and Santa Monica. Venice used to be crazy fun, but that was then. Time was. Now it's just dirty, depressing, and dangerous. We cleared just under thirty miles for the day. Not bad for old farts on fat tire bikes.

Sunday morning was cold and rainy. The cat was not OK.

When I turned on the coffee, Sunday morning, Buddy was in the living room, huddled under the coffee table. Didn't meow. Didn't want no fish. He doesn't usually sit on my lap in the morning.  I picked him up and sat in the big chair. He didn't object, just flopped, listless in my lap. I held the old cat close, and felt the pit drop out of my gut. Gerard is gone. American Digest is over, and the internet is a desert. And now, the cat? I just sat there in the dark, and wept. I had to wait for Mary to get up before I got my first cup. 

Let's end this rather pointless post on a positive note. This morning as I got out of bed, Ol' Buddy was clawing away at the rug in the hallway. He chased me into the kitchen, meow, meow, meow until he got his fish. Looks like he's going to be OK. We have cold, and rain again today, but by the end of the week I should be able to get back to the stone. Life goes on, right?

JWM

 

 

 Overdue

Wed./1/25/23

We're almost through January. Today is Wednesday, the 25th, and, thanks to the first rainy winter we've had in years, it's the first day in weeks that I've been able to get back to the stone.  It's like exercise; I feel like I'm getting back on a workout schedule after three weeks of sitting on my ass watching television, and eating pizza. 

So, I'm going at it slowly. The task right now is to correct the illusion that the figure leans too much to the left side, (or right, depending). The figure doesn't really lean, but I needed to cut some material away so it seems to balance better. Here's what I'm starting out with this morning:

 

 seems to lean...

 Here's where I left off this afternoon:

lean corrected

Work continues. The next challenge will be dealing with that very flat face in front, but that won't happen for many sessions. Truth to tell, the work just feels like work right now. I don't have much in the way of creative energy, and my spirits are hitting a deep, deep low.

........

Not many people stop by this blog, and that is entirely OK with me. I don't offer much in the way of entertainment, like posting music videos, or links to outrages and oddities around the internet.  I don't see any point in jumping into politics, and current events. Too many others already do this, and they do it way better than I could. I guess, you could call this a vanity project, or something. I don't know.

 

This new year started for me with a feeling of apprehension. I felt it over at our friends' house New Year's Eve, like we were entering a season of darkness, and loss. A bad moon risin', as the song goes. Suzie asked me about resolutions, or, more realistically, hopes for the year ahead. I answered that my only hope and prayer for the year was that we all make it safely to the next one. That hope got blindsided fast with the news about Gerard VanderLeun.

 I'm going to assume that anyone who stops by here is familiar with Gerard VanderLeun's site, American Digest. Gerard is a treasure. His site is, hands down, the finest thing on line. He is among the great storytellers of all time. He is the Poet Laureate of the internet. He has been a host, a teacher, and a friend to a great many of us.

Imagine going to school every day, only the school was so much fun that you couldn't wait to get there in the morning, and once you arrived you never wanted class to end. And for over twenty years, it didn't. Every day Gerard had something new. Every day something you didn't know before. Every day something to make you laugh, weep, think deeply, or wax furious. 

Not to mention some of the finest poetry in our language. 

The comments section on AD has become a family. Ghostsniper, Casey, Julie, Mike Seyles, Mike Austin, Dirk, Joan of Arrgh, to name just a very few have become...

 

Have become what?

Relationships like this are something new in the world. We individual participants are literally scattered all over the planet. We gather at one"location" that isn't really a place. We trade notes on line in comment boxes, typing out our thoughts, and opinions on news, or human interest items. We write a bit here and there about our personal lives. Other than a tiny icon, there is nothing to distinguish one commenter from another. A post from Julie looks just like a post from Casey: same font, same spelling, no pictures. A post is pure thought, stripped of any visual, or vocal cues. We know the writers only by their content, and style on the keyboard.

And yet, we quickly get an impression of the personality behind the post. In time, commenters come to life in much the same way we meet, and get to know people in the flesh.  We develop friendships with people we've never seen, and probably never will. There are people on line whom I've known for years, and who have known me for as long, yet we could meet by chance in person, perhaps even carry on a good conversation, and part never knowing who it was we met.

There have been times when I wondered if there is any point in it. Why do this?

I can go back to when I first got a computer, and went on the internet in 2003. I had no way of knowing it, but all the views I held on politics, culture, and religion were about to get overturned, and I was about to get launched on the spiritual journey. Almost all I thought I knew would turn out to be false. I was drawn slowly, but inescapably into the orbit of Christianity, even though I had neither the desire, nor intention to do so. I have become a Believer, a Christian, albeit feral, and unchurched.

No one tried to convert me. People sitting at their desktops writing their thoughts, beliefs, arguments, experiences, effected all the change. The Holy Spirit will employ whatever medium it can as a vector: the written word, the spoken word, even, apparently, this  internet thing.

 

Thu. 1/26/22 

As I write, Gerard remains in hospice. My apprehensions on the new year were well founded. It's a little after 5:00 in the morning as I sit here. The comment count at American Digest is well over 300, and growing. Gerard touched a whole lot of people.

I haven't looked at anything else on line yet, but I know what I'm going to find. I can feel my gut sink. I'd rather blow it off, and just take a W&B yet sure as I'm sitting here, I'll finish up, start in on the list of bookmarks, and take in the toxins of the day.

 

 Last Post for '22

 

Buddy the Christmas Cat

 I've started and discarded several posts over the last couple of weeks. I start writing about the stone, but the weather has been rainy and cold, and most of the work has been stalled at the 'sit-and-stare' stage. I haven't made much progress. I'd include musings from the Suburban Hermitage, but not very much of note has happened around here. That is a good thing. I'm not going to make any comment looking back at the past year, or forward to the new one. I am grateful for what there is to be grateful for. I grieve the loss of what has been lost. I pray for the wisdom to perceive God's will unfolding in each given day.

some bug eating my bush

We held our Christmas open house the weekend before Christmas. Going into the event felt like getting down to business, not play. I wasn't really enthusiastic about the whole thing. It felt like we were doing it because we didn't want to not do it, and it seemed like a strained effort as much as a celebration.

But the gathering was quite successful, despite my low spirits. Mary goes all out for these things, and she has a real gift for creating a festive household. We had a small tree, tinsel, lights, and Mary fixed a huge pot of chili for the party. My friends John, and Mike came over, and Jeff drove all the way up here from Hemet. Mary had guests from Tai Chi, SGI (Buddhist), and her Jungian discussion group, along with our regular guests, Linda, Andrea, Harriett, Bob, and Holly. Many of these folks had not been here before, but everyone mixed well. Several of the guests were impressed with our house. 

It's easy to forget that we do live an odd sort of lifestyle, and this home is unique. There is no media here: no cable, no TV, no stereo. Unless Holly plays guitar, there's no music. We depend on conversation, and storytelling. There is artwork all over the place, and it's all original stuff- no prints, or posters. No food comes from a can, or a mix.  

Being host, you circulate,  sort of play the room, and keep your spider sense tuned in to the vibe. The vibe was good, and the afternoon to evening gathering was relaxed. Mary's chili was a hit. Everyone seemed to find a good conversation somewhere. My artwork got a ton of attention, way more than I was ready for. Of course, it feels good to receive praise for the work, but it's also unsettling in some strange way. All in all the evening was a success, and it left me feeling more in the Christmas spirit.

Thu, 12/29:

 It's been cold, and overcast all day, and the rain  started about an hour ago. Too dreary to work. I walked a couple or three miles this morning, got back to the house, and checked the computer. I was out of the chair, and away from the desktop within ten minutes. Lacking other media, the computer has been my portal into the world outside the homestead for years, now, but I've become just plain sick of it.

 Read another essay. No. 

Check up on the latest outrage. No. 

Catch a glimpse of the toxic insanity, the sad sick mess our world has become. No. No more. 

I'm just hating it. And I'm not the only one. I talk with my few friends, and they're feeling it too. I end up making the same speech over and over: we can not change the mess, or stop the madness. So we have to play defense, stay focused on the immediate good we can accomplish with what resources we have to accomplish it. I preach about disengaging from the mess, but it's not easy to do so. Disengaging is taking a long view of things, and we live life hour to hour not age to age. On the day-to-day level it just gets depressing as hell.  I used to spend three hours or more every morning going through the bookmarks, reading opinion and news, going though the comments sections, and jumping in here and there if I think I have something on-topic to say. No more. Of course, I still visit American Digest several times a day, and I'm following several serials over at the Arkhaven page. Maybe I'll maybe check the headlines at Ace of Spades, but I'm no longer clicking through to the articles.

Anyway.

Here's what's up with the stone.

I started with this:

 I turned it up vertical,  cut a base, and knocked out some rotten rock:

 Now the problem is dealing with a flat face, and two very uneven sides:

I did not plan on this being a major project. I figured I could find some simple form in this splinter of rock, and finish it up in a few weeks. I figured wrong. Sometimes the sitting and staring part yields nothing more than more sitting and staring.

 

Until this started happening:

This may turn out pretty cool.

Maybe. We'll see.

 

 The Winter Stone

 

A new week, a new month, November is over, and I'm starting in on this odd shaped hunk of desert stone. This small white mountain is streaked with brown and black, and it weighs in at fifty pounds even. Much of the material won't be workable. The rock is triangular in cross section, and it has a big, very flat face on one side, and a very irregular surface on another. 

 

Flat is hard to work with, and there's a crack across the lobe at the top end that will probably have to be cut off. The result will be a lot of scrap, and a small finished carving.

 

 

I got more done Wednesday than I had planned. I was just sort of noodling around getting a base line established around the thick end of the rock, but one thing led to another, and I ended up cutting the base, and working it flat on the sanding board. This seems to be a softer piece of alabaster than the one I just finished. We'll see, as I begin to grind on it.

 

 

Truth to tell, I'm approaching this project without much in the way of enthusiasm, or inspiration. It's work to do, and a bunch of problems to solve. It will keep me busy for a while. I'll end up with something cool to sit on the shelf, and that something will sit along with the sixteen other cool pieces I have sitting on shelves around here. Will someone want it? Will someone choose to buy it? Doubtful. But this is how the business of Art proceeds. 

 

You just keep doing it it because there is nothing else you'd rather do. It's fun.  You keep doing it because if you stop doing it then you're no longer an artist. It's important to be an artist, right? Besides, what's the alternative? Watch some TV? Go on line, read articles, and drop comments? Better to work. I didn't make a conscious decision to disengage from news and current events. 

I mean, I did not sit down, think it over, and decide that all the time spent keeping up with the news is time spent falling behind in life. I didn't decide to quit like deciding to quit smoking, or drinking. I'm just sick of all this shit, and I'm not going to feed on it anymore.  My internet travels don't go much further than American Digest, and Arkhaven comics. And I'm fine with that. Energy has to go where it's needed. The news cycle does not need my energy. Creating something, even if it's just carving on a rock, does require my energy, and the task channels my energy, and effort into something beautiful, or so I hope.

I keep doing it because it's important to keep creating. It's what we do in our small imitation of God. It should be approached with joy, but it has to be continued whether joy is part of the process or not. If you work only when you feel all inspired you won't get much done.