Earth Day was fun, I sat at the SCRAP booth for several hours and talked to bunches of friendly people. March Fourth played a great set (as usual,) the Sprockettes debuted 2 new numbers, people slid on the mud, the rain did not (as they say) dampen spirits, or numbers. It's funny though to have an Earth "Day." I mean, we live on the earth. I know it sounds like a hippie cliche to say that every day is earth day, but um... it is. And sheer necessity will make us all more aware of that in very immediate and everyday sorts of ways in the coming years. Mark my words, yo? That time of great change you kept hearing about for the past 40 years? Here it is. The good and the bad of it. The bloody energy war we are now endlessly engaged in, and the swarms of bicyclists menacing the supremacy of autos on the streets of Portland, the factually documented reality of climate change, and all the gardens everyone I know are planting. All part of it.
In other news, I have another public showing of new work coming up, just an early heads up: last Thursday of May on the walls of the lobby of Keystone Mortgage at 22nd and NE Alberta, 30% of sales proceeds will go to SCRAP. I'm excited about the paintings I'm working on.
I'm burned out on riding my bike everywhere, but I don't like driving in town, and I don't like taking Tri-Met outside of a work context (ironic maybe, but its like the person who works at a chocolate factory and can't stand the sight or smell of the stuff.) So where does that leave me? Sitting at home, which drives me stir-crazy. I need a vacation. I need a big trip. I need... something. My life is demonstrably a constant shower of blessings, and still I can fall into this sort of basic existential dissatisfaction. There is no cure for it. The thing that saves me is interacting with a friend. Luckily I have some of those. I know we can't rely on others for our own inner peace and satisfaction, peace and joy and love can only ultimately come from the inside out, but still... humans are social animals, literally. I've always tended to be more solitudinous than probably most people, but as I've gotten older I have actually learned to enjoy peoples' company. As a Libra I should be (stereotypically) the most socially inclined of people. But social ease and enjoyment is something I've had to learn very gradually over the years. Now my life is hyper-social in a way I could have scarcely imagined a dozen years ago. It's a continuous process. The urge to "run away" from it all will probably never totally disappear, but is modified into a desire for the right amount of healthy solitude. The part where I cleanse and re-find my interior sense of self and energy. Something doubly important for someone with moon in Pisces. Otherwise we sort of lose ourselves in the swirl of energies. Which can be good in certain moments, but I have to keep tabs on who I am and what I'm doing. What am I doing? I dunno exactly, but it has to do with the balance between settledness and exploration, between "competing" avenues of creative expression, crafting a vocation that is an expression of my sense of things and my desire to serve, something about music, painting, wandering in the woods, sleeping, baking pies, umm... this is starting to sound like a personals ad. Well, I love walking on the beach. I mean I really do. So much so that one of my "to-do" list items is to hike the entire length of the Oregon coast. It's totally doable, the trickiest part is getting either across or around the mouths of various bays. Okay, I gotta get to bed, my spanish class is in the morning.
Oh, and fare you well Mr. Alex Pollock on your wide wanderings of the world, you rocked this town big-time with who you are, I know I'm just one of many who hopes you come back.
PuppetGanza 4 was last Saturday now. The whole thing went splendidly. All the acts were good, I especially love the Nomadic Theatre and what they do, and Bruce's own Mudeye stuff is AWESOME. His puppets are so much more than puppets, they are wonderful pieces of sculpture. He also made the flight-themed pieces for Nomadic Theatre. My singing went well, my throat was still totally harshed out from my cold, but I pulled it off.
I'm madly into new paintings again. I'm onto something right now. I have to keep going with it. Hey, you know what's the best? Selling a painting to a friend, that way they get to support my creativity and "vocation" in a tangible, concrete way, and I get to say only a quasi-permanent bye-bye to my baby, since when I visit the friend, there it is gracing their (your) wall. But hey, the last two paintings I've sold have been to strangers and that's okay too. Provides a sort of validation. "If I don't know them then I know they're not just being nice." Not that sheer niceness will get most folks to plunk down 2 to 4 hundred bucks, friend or no.
I've been sick most of the week and boy does it suck. I just want to feel 100 percent again. It's a multi-part thing though. I have a horrible bad tooth, which i ignored too long because my Dental insurance doesn't start until May, but I do have medical so finally last Sunday night I went in and got put on 2 kinds of antibiotics, then as a side effect of those I was nauseated all Monday, then Monday night into Tuesday my gums and face swelled up around the bad tooth and I came down with a wretched chest cold to boot. I got an NMT treatment from Sue DeWhitt, subsequently the swelling is down but still not gone and I have been almost continuously queasy all week, as well as totally tired out and prone to wake up drenched in sweat. Anyway, it all just sucks. I appreciate health so much through an experience like this. I've taken 3 days off from work but still hope to sing at Puppetganza Saturday.
I've been reading old journals and notebooks again (late 80's to mid 90's.) Interesting to see where I was and how I've evolved in some ways and keep reiterating themes in other ways. Some of it is pure black self-directed vitriol. Dozens of songs, some of which I still sing. A whole batch of really great country songs that could probably net me zillions in Nashville, if I knew how to market them. A bunch of poems, I don't know if any of them are any good. Here's one that is about my painting (at least I assume it is,) from early on in my painting career. Sums up some of what I do.
from 5-25-92
this canvas
awaits my brush
to paint a picture
of the burning land
to catch the
fickle wind,
ocean currents
that shape our climates,
riptides that tear the shoals
leaving only flotsam,
briefly shining pebbles
drying dull beneath the sun.
This canvas awaits my brush,
to paint a portrait of the dying land
to catch
the fiery leaves
before they fade to black
in the teeming earth,
leaving naked branches
abstract against the sun.
This canvas awaits my brush
[poem unfinished]
Quite possibly. I don't usually run laundry-lists of my activities, but here was my weekend:
Welcome-Home party for Ollie and Elizabeth at Babs' house, bike-to Karaoke at the Driftwood Tavern on Sandy, Ken's birthday brunch, Kathleen's birthday cake-party, Ayleen's housewarming, Superhero dance party, Sunday afternoon art-show party at Margarat Mallat's (who reps some of my work,) Sunday night 9-person dinner party at Babs', plus I worked a shift at Tri-Met, built 2 more new garden raised beds, and volunteered for an hour at the SCRAP garage sale. Now I really need to get practicing the songs for Puppetganza (Saturday 4/9, 3:00 PM at Nocturnal.)