I’m For Sale
“It’s 4 in the morning, by the sound of the birds” is a Dylan lyric I mantra right throughout coffeetime, usually beginning in late May (early this year). I am up with the predawn chorus of one, at the computer, hacking expression. I attracted my mate long ago, built a nest, and have easy access to choice seeds, bugs, worms, and grilled tofu drizzled with aged Japanese smoked soy sauce. I bet there is a more robust predawn cacophony of birds throughout suburbs of Kyoto. In Oswego, a suburb without an “urb”, there’s one lustful bird in late moonlight singing the song of himself until his tiny throat burns. Bird all too bird. We both get back the demons of our risk. Location, location, location! He wants a mate. I want relevance and recognition. Human all too human.
I need nothing but want more. An impotent quack with working legs, unborn again on another promise of May.
I realize the futility of striving. Boiled brown rice and hot broth. Walks to the lake and back. Just being unto death. And breathing. More breathing. In with the bird. Out with the day. This present moment I scratched my elbow and sighed.
Wanderlust has got a hold of me. A southern wind has brought two days of sun and warmer temperatures. I painted this cat last Friday. My mother had a heart attack on Saturday. I spent the day with her in intensive care on Sunday while the warm breeze reprimanded her for fearful hibernation. She’s longs to be a snowbird. So do I. This morning the sky looks like Florida and I can feel the tiny bumps on my ribs where wings could grow.
It’s up to me to shake up the comfort. No lasting good can come from change so carefully planned. My dream begins in the negative/positive:
I do not want my first heart attack to come in a world without flowers thriving.
That’s enough of the too personal. Our lives can be be models of rejuvenation for ourselves and others, yet also cautionary tales to warn of careful time forming us into immovable stone.
So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre.
—Henry David Thoreau
There is no careful way to change a life. But it needs to happen when it must.
My last conditional argument with myself: If I don’t acquire my villa in paradise by next winter, then I suck, suck, suck as an artist.
For exhibitions I often create a press release to help spread the word to all and sundry. The curator asked me to do it for his show. A power request for a fool’s abiding. To paraphrase Henry Miller: “We paint (write), knowing we’re licked from the start”. Please note that I always sweep and mop the floors after openings at Desperation Gallery. You can follow the above link for a better look. These will be some “drip” paintings made over the last two months. I don’t know much about the other two people exhibiting, except that the curator (owner of gallery), tried to force squeeze me like a balloon into a retired art teacher mold, which they are and I’m not. Very difficult to label me. A curse and an accomplishment. I promise to serve food, beer and wine, and wink every ten minutes at the broom standing in the corner. Here is the postcard:
Finally, some more paintings since last post. Like the title says, I am for sale. It doesn’t have to be US dollars. Crypto, pot plants and topsoil exchange fine with me on the village idiot market.
Thank you!
Please come again, heart emoji.