TIME! TIME! TIME!
A carrot on a stick tied to my back.
The amount of time spent typing things that don’t matter at all should be a crime. But what kind of typing is the kind that matters? I say this one, but my paycheck that pays for this machine and this table and this coffee says it’s the other kind. The kind that doesn’t care if you breathe, just as long as you click on the proper forms for all of the people who pay money to be informed by what you are told to type and digital boxes you checkmark with light and shapes and tiny, repetitive hand movements. If by chance I forget to breathe entirely, there will be another creature at the door with good hands for clicking boxes. Perfectly good minds and spirits are used everyday and every hour for filling out forms and fulfilling requirements that have absolutely nothing to do with the delicate beauty found in moments, genuine engagement and art.
Time- organized by systems. Systems of time. Time taken. Time is money. Time is so brutally forced away. Remember when boredom came without tasks? Where’s my magic wand? (See wand below.)
Lately I’ve been forcing myself to breathe like a proper body with proper lungs. To act like a creature who is gifted with such things! In this age of distraction, obligations and anxieties, it’s hard to remember. I have to set an alarm to wake me up at a time when I will have time to remember to breathe. Isn’t that ridiculous?
That said, my method of rising in the dark, in order to take time to breathe before starting my work day has improved, thanks to being given an alarm clock that mimics the sunrise in my room. No sound at all, just some gradual brightening of light, right in my face. As a child who watched too many 1960’s sci-fi reruns on the television, my new little white orb with a gentle digital display is just the kind of simulacrum I might have imagined would wake me up in the year 2022.
ART IS FOR EVERYONE!
Yes, it’s 2022, nearly 2023 and not only do I find a fake sun satisfying, I hear A LOT about art as something anyone can do and sure, of course! Why not? I’m an art teacher so I say this sort of thing all the time. But I’d like to ask-
Have you taken time (especially if you have some of it free)? Have you entered into your work in a way you can’t even understand? Do you get that it’s a mystery you are supposed to transmute into a form or experience of some kind? Do you know that you can start with shapes you compulsively draw or paint? That it can come from inspiration that is not visual at all? It’s not just a set of instructions. It’s supposed to be weird. As a matter of fact, I am here to state that I believe the world of tutorials and pre-packaged kits is killing creative confidence in a whole new way. Like a spy or a virus worming something sick and rotten inside of our minds. I’ve witnessed many of my students give up on projects they chose because popular online tutorials end with definitive results. It’s what people (consumers) think they want, but people are wrong. There, I said it.
Don’t trust what’s easy. It’s never easy. Don’t trust anyone who says it is, even if it’s me, because sometimes it is.
Use your obsessions. Find yourself in the clouds, the shimmer of dawn, a leaf, a flower, the dirt, sand and wild water. It’s in remembering the time you almost died but didn’t. The time you could not stop smiling for a reason that didn’t make sense at all but it’s so real that it has to be turned into something. Translate pure mystery and fail, over and over again. Be ugly and stupid and in wonder. This is worth the student loan debt (if we lived in a world where we could all earn enough to actually afford to live and pay off even tiny fractions of our debt without killing ourselves with a job that takes all of our time and energy), but basic survival for folks like me, and two days a week of time for what really matters sweeps aside that value and tells me that a person who has wine and paints a mountain and sunset along with twenty other people who paint the same mountain and sunset is intrinsically in the same world as I am. Add to that the assumption that I should give my time away to people in order to help them paint mountains with sunsets. Bob Ross, you created a monster.
WINTER
It’s already cold here on the central coast of California, but of course this version of cold isn’t so bad. The ice that forms on my car windshield overnight can be removed with a little bit of water being poured over it.
The commute to my teaching job has me leaving at dawn and driving home after the sun has set. Soon it will be dark both ways. Less daylight, more time wrapped up. Closed in. Time to embrace the mood, or “the vibe” as everyone around me can’t help but spew out in regard to anything and everything.
Yeah. Time to embrace the dark.
The trees here are having a nice time with it though. The rains, which have also come with the cold, seem to be doing good things. Where I am, the coastal cypress trees are showing off some vibrant greens, and the redwoods are, as well. These showcase thick, reddish bark made brighter in the dampness, and all that comes from what falls down from their reaching branches covers everything like a carpet. That smell is good. Here and there you’ll see a shock of yellow. A very good yellow, and it’s a banana slug.
Here is where all of the venting I did above works me back into the state of optimism I inevitably return to, as I realize that all of the work I dread and complain about, all the work that takes my time away from my art-life, has led me back to being around banana slugs and well, that’s worth some sacrifice.
WRITING
The only kind of writing I’ve been holding onto for the past few years has been this newsletter, writing occasional speeches for graduating students and I’ve also written and re-worked a couple of things for local art experiences, here on the Monterey peninsula. I tried to spark something out from under the experiences I’ve been having as a caregiver to my mom but that fire didn’t light. Not yet, anyway.
Unexpectedly though, I felt recently compelled to start a project. Something new, focused on witchcraft, or what it is for me; what it means to me, and how it works for me. My passages through faith and connectivity continue to grow in importance to me and the elusiveness of it all has become some kind of life-tissue that makes all the difference in everything I do, whether art or anything else. I think it could be useful to write on the subject, especially as a way to get past the term “life tissue” that I just decided to use.
In any case, I started by recording “chapter” ideas into my phone during my commute this past fall- and now I’m transcribing the thoughts and it’s all getting properly messy and mysterious and confusing and I’m straying away from my theme at every twist and turn. But that’s what it’s about. It’s good to have a focal point to edit toward and I hope this eventual bit of writing (I’m hoping it’s a book) is something that can connect to others.
AUDIO BOOKS
I listen to a lot of audio books now because I can listen while doing things and also, I appreciate the production quality! It’s funny when I think about watching the show Eastbound & Down in like 2010 and the ridiculous ex-pro baseball player, Kenny Powers, decides to “write” an audio book and his process is not to sit down and write but record himself speaking. At the time I was completing my thesis/novel/experimental writing project to earn my master’s degree and I laughed hard at the dummy on the TV screen. Now authors and celebrities seem to record themselves as fast as possible for subscription sites like Audible, or podcasts here, there and everywhere. Books like The Beastie Boys Book were made to be listened to and guess what? I love it! I can’t get enough. Who’s the dummy now? Oh yes, it’s me.
Here are two recent ones that have been particularly useful:
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders was great as it enhanced some of the sort of lonely but positive, personal affirmation about my own creative process- made through working in abstractions, in paint, mostly but also with my writing. In this book he investigates famous Russian short stories, most of which I had never read, and it reminded me to trust in making and remaking and sharing. Also, he wrote it all in Corralitos, California, where he has a home, in the redwoods. I once had a home near there and as I stated earlier, I still love those trees. Being farther away from a city keeps me from feeling connected to some things, but knowing the likes of a writer like him chooses to keep a part of his life out here makes me feel a little closer to an energy I need. Or maybe it’s just that I feel that I’m justified in needing this landscape. You know, a smart and famous person lives where I do so it’s a good place. Lol.
And then there is Born To Run, Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography. I admit it gets redundant and self-aggrandizing, the way celebrity autobiographies can get, and I’ve never really listened to a full album of his, but I respect his artistic identity over the years and really loved hearing his process of growth as an artist, writer, performer, and regular old human. He gets deep into where it all comes from and like my experience with Saunders’ work, I found myself back into that elusive world that exists as a teeter-totter weighed on one side with trust and the other with hard-labor. I guess that’s how I’m hearing things lately. It’s what I need.
AND THEN THERE’S ART
I’ve been struggling with this piece. This is one that I’ve been engaging with while listening to the two audio books I mentioned above. I’ve been working hard to let go of control and also embrace big risks and reworks. Getting to that dance I like to get into when I paint. Here is where I perceive my spiritual practice, witchcraft, entering into the work. I follow my intuition and like all artists (unless they are at a paint-and-sip), I listen to the painting, as best as I can. It’s not there yet but I moved past some sticky bits that were driving me bonkers. I’m more excited to work on paintings and sculptural pieces that lack obvious monsters, but this project (it’s a series of like fifteen or twelve or so…) is one that I must complete. I’m almost there.
The funniest thing is that I was compelled to work on this puzzle…
…and I swear it helped me sort some things out in the painting, or perhaps I needed the reference to work from. Brains are weird.
As well as working on a puzzle for fun, I also, finally, learned how the game, Sudoku works! I’ve been secretly intimidated by this game since I first heard about it and jealous of everyone I knew who played and loved it. (Numbers have always been tricky for me, speaking of brains.)
One of the math teachers I work with had Sudoku pages printed out for students to work on and I figured I would give it a go. If teens could do it, so could I. As well, I knew I could ask the supportive math colleague of mine for help when I needed it and I did and she gave me some good tips. It wasn’t until I got a whole book of the number puzzles at the supermarket that I was able to complete a puzzle entirely on my own. I’m stoked!
WINTER SOLSTICE
My connection to the Wheel of the Year and changing seasons grows increasingly important as I age. They act as reminders of what matters (which is often a mystery to me) and it’s this belief system that helps me connect to the trust I need to write, make art, learn and share, with as much courage as I can muster, and only I can determine what that courage looks like. I think I do know that it keeps me working on personal boundaries, breakthroughs and growth toward perceptions I never even expected. My goal is transcendence, whatever that means- I want to live and die within the folds of something I can only connect to faith, which I have, and often forget about, but I’ve found some rules for that mystery. The seasons act as my alarm. In this case, it’s the “real” sun that wakes me up or puts me to sleep and reminds me to breathe.
I’ll leave you with a photo of the cozy space my partner and I made up for the holidays and I wish you comfort and whatever kind of blessings you need. Thanks for reading.
Hey, Linda: I enjoyed reading this issue and posted a link to it on Issue #95 of Eulipion Outpost (where I also wrote about time--or a timepiece. ;-) https://jeanvengua.substack.com/