I remember this day with much happiness.

 

“The past beats inside me like a second heart.”
― John Banville

Nashville, TN, August, 1975.

"Jane Says," Happy Thanksgiving.

 

Destruction by Charles Baudelaire.

 

Evelyn De Morgan, Angel with the Serpent

Destruction by Charles Baudelaire

The Demon is always moving about at my side;
He floats about me like an impalpable air;
I swallow him, I feel him burn my lungs
And fill them with an eternal, sinful desire.

Sometimes, knowing my deep love for Art, he assumes
The form of a most seductive woman,
And, with pretexts specious and hypocritical,
Accustoms my lips to infamous philtres.

He leads me thus, far from the sight of God,
Panting and broken with fatigue, into the midst
Of the plains of Ennui, endless and deserted,

And thrusts before my eyes full of bewilderment,
Dirty filthy garments and open, gaping wounds,
And all the bloody instruments of Destruction!

All Art.

“Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”

                                  ― Franz Kafka

Mother Goddesses aren't real.

“Mother goddesses are just as
silly a notion as father gods.
If a revival of the myths
of these cults gives woman
emotional satisfaction, it does so
at the price of obscuring the
real conditions of life. This is
why they were invented
in the first place.”

— Angela Carter

Shift out of my old skin.

No one wants to be isolated, but this year, some of us are totally alone, or facing a kind of isolation that feels claustrophobic and heavy. I’ve taken some of this time to find out how this could be a benefit to me instead of stressing the negative points. Because it’s much easier to do that without a tribe or influence. It’s in our nature to want contact, to want culture and tribe and belonging and status. To feel good. Facebook and other forms of social media are designed to indulge our needs to be liked and validated. We hang out with people who do that for us. We seek something that makes us feel good. But there is a danger, when an artist is making change, to be entrenched in a tribe, unless the change you seek is WHY you choose a certain supportive group of people. Our artistic tribe determines our artistic behaviors. We will do and say things that bring us praise and approval by our friends. I think it’s easy to understand this because we grow up and are influenced by our families first, then our close friends, then the powerful many, then what we love and admire. Status is everything, even in art. All of that is great until you want something different or need to make a change that is not the “normal” for your tribe. Then watch out. The pull and influence of the tribe, even one you love and respect, will then be against what you are seeking. There are a few things that I have long wanted to do artistically but never could accomplish because of outside influence. Even the weight of someone’s loving regard was too pressing for me and I was too weak to shift out of my old skin. But then a virus came along, and low and behold, I was isolated enough to explore perspectives and values and craft outside my norm and comfort zone, to experiment, to seek new habits I might not have ever sought previously. I hate this virus. But it’s here. And I am adapting. There is an old saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." I have. (Image is Edward Hopper's chalk drawing for Morning Sun.)

Learning to Live Within Time.

“We live in a world in which it is impossible to anticipate most of the contingencies that will arise. Neither the political context, nor the inventions, nor the fashions, nor the weather, nor the climate are precisely specifiable in advance. There is, in the real world, no possibility of working with an abstract space of all the contingencies that may evolve. To do real economics, without mythological elements, we need a theoretical framework in which time is real and the future is not specifiable in advance, even in principle. It is only in such a theoretical context that the full scope of our power to construct our future can make sense.” 

                 ― Lee Smolin

When I was young, I wished that I would never grow up, and if I did, not too much. Just enough.

I was thinking about my weaknesses of character today. I suppose if I could offer two examples of that weakness it would be my love of Marc Chagall and Brian Molko, two artists that get mixed reviews and are considered "childish" with "narrow focuses" and a "nostalgia for childhood and/or adolescence." Often I wonder though if it's just their sense of amazement at life. I often consider myself a bride of amazement, and that the sum of my ambition is just that, Being amazed!- which I think describes both Chagall and Molko well. Perhaps that is my weakness and my attraction to their art. Some people don't even consider Chagall worthy. I adore him. Some people absolutely do not like Molko, I adore him also. And maybe that's the weakness of character, the idea that the three of us never really wanted to grow up. Laughing. It kind of spills over into my life in all ways. My love of superlatives, my ability to change my mind, the fact that half my life is just revision. I don't like burning bridges, etc. but I can and when I do, I never look back except in rare occasion and that includes most things I create. This is Chagall's Between Light and Darkness. It's really about desire and longing I think. And I feel that this is what I think about in life, in writing, in most things, and so does Molko when he writes his twisted little adolescent love songs. It's a weakness in some ways. And maybe my only strength, too. Let's not speak of Molko's depression. Or mine. When we are depressed, the world is gloomy. His depression is "wider" than my depression is. His is a psychological condition, where I experience a kind of depression in reaction to stress or situation. Chagall managed his better.

Rumer Godden Quote

“There is an Indian proverb that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional, and a spiritual . Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person.”

                         — Rumer Godden