What is it makes art, art?

With the sun down,
this low, dusty hill murmurs to quiet.
At the tired house where a door hangs, crucified from one half of hinge,
you can almost hear that
light, whispering radio sounds
remain within.
The helmeted cops are probably,
only recently gone on?

Outside, almost hidden in heat blistered trees,
are petty birds who’ve ceased their riot
and settled scores,

taken their winnings one by one.
Unaware how deep dusk can be,
one last, ruffled-loose feather drowns.

The photographer chose black and white,
those two which are every colour or none
and I agree.
There exists enough to imagine from what first seems a limited pallet.
Mystery of all sorts rebounds,

is set free from the affliction of too many
nailed down ideas.
Without much chromatic noise to follow,
any willing witness becomes again callow,
as if hollow.
Any who choose to peruse
can separate for a moment
and stare into whom or what
is evident by apparent absence.
What was seen and is not now obvious,
miraculous returns, resurrected.

Start again. I had nothing to do (uh…not true, there was plenty but it wasn’t appealing.) I watched a documentary about Wynn Handman. I never heard of Wynn Handman. Wynn Handman ran a theatre and taught acting (still teaches) in New York City. Oh New York, Oh Greenwich Village, Oh the days…the long gone days. Wynn Handman had a lot to say about acting that works for writing as well. In the terms presented during the course of the film, I am still a fraud. I haven’t done all of my work yet. There is much more to do. My bad. Wynn Handman would certainly ask me to do it over, try again. Start again.

Many years ago, in a fit of disgust and in the mood to change my life, I threw away about 15-20 years worth of writing. It filled a couple of extra large black plastic garbage bags. I don’t regret that, it was mostly a pile of undeveloped sketches and crap. I was supposed to stop writing then, buckle down and get a good job, work hard, buy a nice house, grow up. I tried to do that and it worked, sort of. I was married, we bought a house, we had a new car and a miscarried potential child. I had in-laws and ordinariness. At the last, the marriage I was in didn’t succeed since she wasn’t gay. I tried again at the ‘home and family life’ with a young fella and it took, we had a long time and a decent, respectable (if you can call homo-life respectable) life together. I saved money, worked at a job I disliked, built and renovated houses, prepared for the retirement future. A practical, work-a-day world far from Greenwich Village, far from Wynn Handman, far from New York City and the source, the answer, the reason, the magic.

The dull life went on for 30 years but I never totally stopped doing the writing. I wrote poems to my husband/partner/lover/male companion and put them in his lunch box. I wasn’t keeping a journal then, but I did keep some of the scraps of poems and the attempts at more developed prose. I continued, like a nearly broken wire connection – sometimes off and sometimes on but mostly off. It was mostly crap writing, bored housewife stuff. I finally threw that away as well when we moved between houses.

The second marriage didn’t work either, in the end. I was an unacceptable lover and husband, twice. Since both marriages ended at about the 9 year (of being officially married) mark, I called it ‘baseball’. I’d been at bat for both teams and struck out in the ninth each time. The second time, was time for a hard reflection and I found myself lacking in every possible way. I was retired from work, out of money, out of the world of family life, disgusted with myself. I determined to change. New leaf. Start again. I took up music in a serious manner. I actually took the guitar I can only half play up on THE STAGE and SANG in front of PEOPLE. Of course, it wasn’t good. My ex-husband was right about that. Sigh.

Now, I am old enough that starting anew is something I don’t have a lot of interest in. Starting anew has only one result: pennies on the eyelids half way through. There isn’t time to be a real musician or a real writer. As an artist, in any medium, I am raw, unshaped. There isn’t time to lose the excess weight, trim down the package. Wynn Handman’s advice is good, it applies to writing, to singing, it’s worth following but there isn’t time now. I have a friend who once said, “If you can’t play, then you shouldn’t”. He was right. The world only has a little time and struggling writers, struggling musicians, learning actors are clogging the system. The audience only has a little time and there are thousands of books to read, plays to see, music to hear. No time to sort through shit. “Shut up, sit down, be quiet.”

The trouble, dear Brutus is that we can’t sit down. Not totally, I keep writing. I keep picking up the guitar from time to time. I keep struggling with the piano. The pieces remain undeveloped sketches and crap but they are better crap than before. The inertia of doing it more and more means that a sort of osmosis is happening. Once in a while, a flash of something real? Rarely, but yes, sometimes. Always, in the back of my head are the Wynn Handmans of our lovely little planet. They are real, the advice they give is real, the work could be real but isn’t yet. “Try this…now, do that…lights down, do it again.” Will there be an audience (the second part of any artistic endeavor – perhaps the most crucial part)? I decide to keep moving forward, even though there isn’t enough time. There is time to relax about things and I am so very lucky that I have a living that is separate from the writing and music. I can bomb out (do, frequently) and it’s okay…the children have enough to eat, the spouse has already left. I can clutter the living room with barely-touched instruments and sheet music. I can sit at the kitchen table, adding more bits and bytes to the stack. It’s okay. In fact, it is one hell of a lot better than what Donald Trump is doing. I wonder what Wynn Handman would say to him? “…stop. Do it again. This time try empathy. Try to make it real, strip off the makeup, the orange hair, the defences. Okay, lights down…again…from the top.”

A year ago last night, I swallowed an ancient poison. Out of slow pain, grows each next blunder, submissive sigh. I know well what terror’s counsels be. Crouched low, in a dim light, I followed familiar rhythm. There is no gain, no use, to wonder might I die. I could feel the mirror watching me. (The Wicked Queen hates Cinderella and clucks a tongue with glee, though this time, because of luck, her apple has coughed free.)

Two oh, two oh two oh… another interesting day. There have been many, if you think on it, over the last nearly 70 years. My upcoming birthday (October) has me a bit reflective. This is a milestone, no matter how you examine it. I have turned a corner and, like an iceberg, most of me – most of my time is behind me. The people I knew and know are fading. The times are changing, the water tastes different, the young folks mumble and waste their beauty as if it would always exist, what work remains is not essential. I have ‘been there, done that’ as it were. Is it the ‘Farewell Symphony’? In a way, yes. All of the little music stand lights are clicking off, one by one and the sound is echoing off away. Pack it up, kids…

Still, the truth be told… I love a good sleep, a rich cup of coffee, a nice chat with friends, meeting new friends, learning new things, listening to rock roll (specially my young friends in England), reading a good book, baking something delicious and eating it, writing something that sounds right. Ha. What else is there? (Mad, passionate lovemaking? Um…okay…)

I had a full day today. I met a new friend at Starbuck’s (2 meters and mask), chatted with a friend who stopped by (no hugs), started a plan in motion for some culture, had a good piano lesson, worked on a poem that is being dragged out one word at a time but feels decent, ate a bit of really fresh fruit and talked on the phone…but I didn’t get much done around the house. There is still tomorrow. Someday, there won’t be tomorrow and that’s okay, no biggie. I wonder where the birds went, don’t you?

Poem preview from the new book, I am sending this out to a friend who is at a crossroads (mild). There is no judgement here, no solution, only awareness of something…something new.

3. A Generous Breakfast

The visitor looks paused, as if at brink.
Maybe, he waits to gather forward motion strength
or considers deep a common sentiment.
It is, by many, well-believed that
a crossroads met means something more.

I watch him grow quiet or
hesitate, like me, deciding what’s deeper meant
that once again, brow furrow
and finger tracing on the menu map
interrupt a comfortable stroll.

He first acted eager inquisitor,
and burst in striding, secure, content,
now sits cautious under a yellow
‘Open’ sign, hands folded in his lap,
listening to a cash register toll.

This little restaurant, my old favourite,
sits half between here and there,
promising the road from noplace might
actually lead somewhere.

I almost whisper to the waitress
who asks, “What will it be, friend?”
“…a generous breakfast, I guess,
and I’ll be on the road again.”

Funny stuff. Some naughty stuff. Of course. I was reminiscing about hospital situations I have been in. At the same time, I was realizing that I have been in hospital a number of times in my life. I suppose the same is true of others? Yeah, I guess so. My first episode, other than the original and long forgotten awakening, was to have my tonsils removed so that I would have fewer infections. In those ancient days, that was a primary reason for tonsillectomy. I suppose (by checking with Dr. Google) that it is still a primary reason. In any event, there I was in the days of an ether drip for anesthetic. I remember a great deal about it. The ether leaves a strange flavour in your mouth and gives you a delightful experience of being ‘away’ for a while. It is not unlike sniffing glue. When I was being returned from my little blue heaven, my first awareness was of sitting on the edge of the bed with a nurse giving me ice cream for my throat scratchiness. My mom and dad wondered if there was a special diet requirement and the doctor assured them that I could have anything I wanted. On the way home, I asked for potato chips and my parents were horrified. Haha.

My more recent hospital visits are less well chronologically remembered but no less amusing. When my gall stones shifted and knocked me off my feet, I rode via ambulance to our local hospital. The ambulance attendants were so good looking and so very friendly. One fellow was a bit touchy feely and very kind, very handsome in his little ambulance outfit. He patted me on the shoulder and was very interested in how I was feeling. I had a nice ride. After arrival at the emergency room, I was placed on a gurney and the fellows were interviewing me for hospital triage. My handsome saviour was ticking off the boxes on a sheet and came to the ‘relationship status’ box. “Are you married?” “Yes.” “Where shall we contact your spouse?” “He is at work, right now…”. My last statement caused the handsome young fella to blanch, visibly. I could almost hear his inner voice saying, “Oh, my God! I touched a homosexual in an intimate sort of way!” Haha. He became distant, a bit detached.

During that same E.R. visit, while I lay on my bed with the privacy curtain drawn and the morphine drip in, a fellow was brought in and placed in the next cubicle. “Ow, ow, wow..” he repeated, over and over ad nauseum. He just got louder and louder, with the nurses in attendance. They pleaded with him, trying to make him understand that his tension in reaction to the pain was causing his pain to be greater. One nurse cautioned that it wasn’t possible to give him anything for relief until they knew what was causing the problem. He settled a bit, then returned to the loud complaining. His spouse was urging him not to upset the other patients, “..please, they are going to take care of you. You are going in immediately for ultra sound testing. Try not to upset the other folks in here, you are really howling!” Within minutes or less, he was whisked away for his test and returned almost as quickly. The doctor marched right in to give the result. “owwwww…ow..wow!” “Please, try to be quiet… you have an aortic aneurism and we will have to do surgery as soon as possible.” The fellow quieted a bit and said, “So, what? I have to come back in a week or something?” The doctor replied, “Oh, no..it has to be done right now. We don’t have a surgery available here, so the ambulance is being readied. You are going to Detroit and will be having surgery in twenty minutes time!” The fellow became extremely quiet, then said, “Oh.” I didn’t hear another sound from him after that.

On the day of my surgery to remove the gall stones, my brother came to assist. It was a day surgery and I was to be released as soon as the anesthetic wore off. Good! While lying in a stupor in recovery, I peacefully checked out my surroundings. I could see I was lying in a row with several other persons. One older fellow next to me on the right, a young and very attractive guy in the bed to my left. The attractive guy was out cold, having probably only recently been wheeled there. I was in a groggy haze and the fellow to my right was a bit better. One nurse came to check on our progress and was quite pleased. “Oh, here you are back again, you two!” She said. The older fellow started chatting with her and asked, “So how long have you been a nurse, forty years or so?” I started to laugh and the nurse came back with, “Okay, I can see that you two are going to be trouble! Here, I thought it was going to be an easy day…”

When my mother in law was descending into dementia, she became quite entertaining. I loved the time I spent caring for her, taking her to doctor appointments, etc. She had many small strokes over a few years time and was being treated at the Transient Ischemic Attack clinic at hospital. TIA was on the left side of the outpatient room and the orthopaedic clinic on the right side. We sat waiting to be seen and she marveled at the folks and their cast arrangements. Each person headed in to orthopaedics with a more and more elaborate device. One woman had an arm fixed at a funny position, almost above her head. She also walked with the aid of a crutch, hobbling all the way. Mum looked at this in amazement and said to me, “She is in BAD shape!”

Ah, the good ol’ days.

Slip slidin’ through and past the ‘dog days’ of summer. The days named so because of the position of Sirius, the Dog Star. Isn’t that interesting? I used to think that it meant the days when the dogs get so hot and tired that they just lie in and be lazy in whatever shade there is. Both explications of ‘the dog days of summer’ work, don’t they? They are equally telling but mine is a bit more colourful? Ha. I am in my ‘dog days’. I have work to do that I am avoiding with just a tad of procrastination. I have a serious talent in the area of procrastination. This fact was pointed out in the ‘teacher remarks’ area of my kindergarten report card. I have kept the trait alive, these many years.

These many years, I am a procrastinator and a perfectionist. The simplest things to learn and know of yourself are the hardest to own. I am trying to own them, at this late point in life, in order that I may move forward and accomplish something I can value.

These two simple faults are the most pressing at times, they create the most anxiety. These two simple faults are the easiest to misunderstand as well. Procrastination is not laziness. Perfectionism is not elitism. Procrastination, at the root, is fear. I think most of us believe it is an act of laziness but fear is the driver. Laziness is a dog in the shade. Laziness is willfully walking through the flower bed instead of around it. Laziness is tossing a paper cup on the ground instead of in the trash can, three feet away. Laziness is leaving the lights on when you go to another room and know you aren’t coming back. Procrastination is avoiding and surrendering to, fear in a thousand forms. Fear of finishing a project and then maybe not having anything to do? Fear of finishing a project incorrectly? Procrastination is more like throwing up backstage while the conductor and audience are waiting for your arrival in the spotlight. It isn’t being lazy and careless about other’s time. Procrastination is keeping the money in the bank out of fear you will need it for something important, when something important needs to be paid for.

Perfectionism is something other that it seems, too. Perfectionism is not holding yourself above others, it’s the opposite. A perfectionist is not one who demands things to be a certain way and is very vocal about it. That isn’t perfectionism, that is arrogance. Arrogance is another problem, yes but has only a small element to do with perfectionism. Real perfectionism is a much deeper, more personal fault. Perfectionism is the soul believing it and everything it touches, is not good enough. Not good enough.

So, I procrastinate and I hold myself to very high standards. That is a sort of double whammy, most of the time. I am afraid to finish or to start something because it won’t be good enough or I won’t get enough done or… or… This is a cycle, a circle, a roundabout from which it is very difficult to emerge. Sometimes, I can just do and be and it is okay. Most often, not. I have a feeling that you know the feeling, yourself. Sometimes, what I am doing or want to do, I know to be so imperfect that I cannot move myself to do it. Those are the only truly wasted days, the days when I stare out the window and my heart races.

There are days to get up, and do something. Days, like today, when doing something other than what you fully intended, wanted to do is also being forward moving, making progress. Ah. No, I am not being lazy about working on my little shed project. I am procrastinating because it won’t be perfect when I am done. It won’t be flawlessly level and square, the way Stefan would have done it. I won’t have finished as much as Yvan would have finished. It will take me all summer. Sigh.

The writing jumped in today to take over the slack time. I am typing in order not to be idle. Well, the typing is also less than Margaret Atwood would have done. The words, meaning, intent are less exact than my brother Peter might have done if he were doing it. Thing is, he isn’t doing it. Peter is not writing this, Stefan is not building my shed, Yvan is not working like crazy getting everything done at once. I am doing this and it is ok. What I am doing is good enough. What I am doing is exercising my own abilities.

Ha. The measuring ruler is on in my word processor. That is a double meaning for certain. It is measuring me as I write. The ruler is there, staring back at me. I don’t have to be eight and one half by eleven with a one inch margin around. I can type or build or sing or play at odd angles and sizes and it is good enough. Good enough to accomplish the goal. That goal is to feel whole and fell alive and be just ordinary, just good enough. Sigh. Okay, I had better get busy on the little lop-sided shed, now that I have completed the lop-sided blog. Hahahahahahah.

I haven’t had much to say the last little bit, have I? Been mighty quiet. I realize it is because I don’t believe I should speak, I don’t really know anything. I got into an interesting discussion with a friend about the word ‘regime’ and how the connotation changes, depending on how it is pronounced. Well, I was kinda wrong and I was kinda right. Yes, correct and incorrect both. In my historical environment, I have used and heard used this word two ways. When pronounced a’ la mode Francaise, as the Americans pronounce it (incorrectly, reh-ji-may’) it means in English only ‘a regular method’ or ‘daily habit’, as in the correct word ‘regimen’. When pronounced reh-zjeem, it indicates more – example, a government or system of government. Regime DOES also mean regimen, so, I am sorta correct and sorta incorrect.

This is my point about not believing I should speak. I don’t have the sort of education in English that I need to feel confident. I am a fraud. My breasts come from the silicone factory, my hair from the Alpaca farm? haha. I go through a series of doubt potholes at times and realize that Margaret Atwood isn’t interested in listening to my drivel. My poetry sings like flatulence, my prose leads nowhere. Someone, inevitably will call me out on my rough edges. I sit and stew in the juice of the lower class. Oooops. “Don’t git above yer raisn” resounds loud and clear at times and I recuse myself from the world of literature, even from the world of internet blogging. (Are the two related at all? …hard to say.)

I had a very painful exchange with my younger brother once that has kept itself at the edges of my conscious mind. I haven’t let go of it these many years since. We were discussing a poem and I was pontificating on it’s meaning, it’s intent. After things got a little heated and he became frustrated in the attempt to repair my opinion, he shouted, “But I HAVE BEEN TO COLLEGE! I KNOW!” Well, then. Shut me down. I have not been to college…

When the light shines, as it so rarely does, I awake to my poetry/singing/musicianship as after a ten-week drinking and cocaine binge. I wake up, look around the trashed apartment, notice two dead bodies and an empty cheque-book. It’s then that I usually say, “What the hell have I done!” and retreat from the creative world.

That’s my situation at the moment. I have become alert, however briefly it may be and I read through what was recently put to paper (pixel). Oops. My bad. Sorry. No, I didn’t finish college. My critical thinking, planning, execution are all out of whack. So, I rest. In a day or week or so, I will return with fresh illusions. My blinders will be on and I can continue. Today? Well, today I will go have a glass of wine with friends and forget about being useless for a while…maybe, I can repair the kitchen lights for someone. Hm.

Already launched into August? Not. With no singing season in sight, the summer has felt endless. I can imagine that the schoolchildren feel the same way though their situation is less certain. “Will we be going back to school, will we not?” I know we, as a chorus, will not be singing until after January at best and not until next September at the least. That is a personal tragedy. Someone once very rudely, very much behind my back, suggested that the singing kept me stable. Sadly, that is partly true. Wow. If my stability were called into question these days, I could retort, “No, it isn’t the singing that keeps me on an even keel…it’s the prescription drugs!” Haha.

I came to depend on the weekly choir events for camaraderie and exercise. At one point, I was in three choirs – one rehearsal Monday, one Wednesday and one Thursday. It made for a daunting amount of material to learn. I grew into the task by realizing that we always had our scores with us in performance for reference. The rest of the work is simply learning the intervals and the expressions. The intervals are the same no matter what you are singing. There is a fourth, a fifth, a minor fall, a major lift. Haha. Seriously, in simplest terms all you need do is keep learning how to sing C, then G, then F, E, D, C and how loud, soft, what rhythm. Of course, that isn’t easy, that’s why we have to keep learning it. Rehearsing three times a week is a great way to learn ‘Do Re Mi’.

Thinking of solfege and how hard it is to learn, I am reminded now of a fellow I used to work with. I was warned by my colleagues not to attend a tavern with him, under any circumstances. “You never know if you will be going to jail or not.” I took heed. He was a bit rough and tumble and sparky. Standing at the boring mill, he always kept a shoulder-width foot position with one foot slightly back. Since he was short and thick, not fat, it gave the impression of some sort of pit bull dog who was ready to pounce! While he worked, he always sang or whistled. Music bubbled out of him along with a quick wit and I had two occasions to witness and remember the rest of my life. Since he was operating the small boring mill, just as another employee had before him, I got a smart-ass urge and asked him if I could call him, “Al”. (The other guy’s name.) Without missing a beat he said, “Sure, if I can call you Betty, ha-ha!” One day as I walked past, he was whistling what sounded like the overture to Swan Lake. “..daaa, da-da-da-da-daaaa-ta-da, da daaa da, da da da, ta da…”. I complimented him on his choice of material by name and he looked at me, stunned. “I was whistling, ‘Doe, a deer’!” he said. I excused my ignorance and went back to my area. You see? ‘Do-Re-Mi’ isn’t easy to do.

Living with Covid-19 is not going to be easy. The locked down spring, summer and hesitant season to come have our world upside down. Folks are marching in the streets in a number of locales. Governments are sending mixed messages, confused orders and economies are in peril. There is an edge to every word that emanates from the capitals. We are in a jam. What is particularly dangerous, we have only rudimentary community. Singing, concerts, sports, picnics, parades are all in the past for the present. We are gettin’ antsy, boys and girls. That ain’t a good thing. “…daaa, da-da-da-da-daaa, ta-da….”

Well how do you like that? Today turns out full with promise of a lovely day. We really didn’t have a lot of rain but the green growing things have been refreshed. The maple outside my window is smiling, dancing in light breeze and the sweltering air has been blown elsewhere. We, too can begin breathing again. Perhaps it won’t get so hot today? That would be nice.

I never pay attention to the weather reports so I don’t know what’s coming. My style is not to know or prepare in advance. I don’t study for exams, I don’t take the turkey out of the freezer, I don’t practice piano. If I were pregnant, I wouldn’t want to know the sex of the coming child. I never shake the box for clues to what my gift is.

Today is a gift, even though I am loathe to say something so trite. It is wrapped tightly in a bold colour print paper, or it is bound with a magnificent string. I can take the end of the string and start unwinding. I can take a corner of the paper and start tearing. I can take my time. Patience. Anticipation, not dread. Let’s see where this leads.

I write in the same way, I don’t prepare. I start typing and wander about looking for an end of thread to begin pulling. Where I end up, what is revealed will be left to chance. If I planned, I could do something better? Maybe, like William Faulkner, I should draft the plot and characters in advance and place sheets of paper about the study walls as a map? Then, I might know where to go and how to get there, what to wear, what colour to paint the nursery, which notes are coming. I would be a pro.

Sigh. I am not a pro. I unravel the day, I unwind the muse. I wait for the surprise. Take today for example. Let’s see where today goes…so far, I am having fun. It is also payday today. Perhaps I will be drunk later, lying under the maple tree and singing. Perhaps I will accomplish nothing at all. That has to be ok.