IMPROVISATIONS

MONDAY

 Hesitant morning and bumbling afternoon, I was both restless and exhausted all day. I left the apartment at 5PM to head downtown.

On my way to my regular writing group session, I happened on this couple (attractive tourists from abroad) trying to take a photo of themselves in an artistically cracked life size mirror discarded on the sidewalk. We chatted about photography and I set the mirror upright to frame their next attempts. Then they insisted I be in the photo and then they invited me to share supper at a local place. I had to decline and continue onward, but she asked for my email so I expect some adventurous correspondence to come. They were truly nice. She's a photographer and I'm sure her shots were better and so too the ones I took with her impressive SLR Camera. I took these two (flash and no flash) with my little old Pentax Optio-550.

Hurry August

 9 PM
My upstairs neighbors are moving and I just want to get all the thumping over with. Next will be the new upstairs neighbors moving in, possibly having the housewarming party and having to be informed that a sometimes nasty though smiling elder lady lives below and that her one precious life is affected by their precious lives. Hoping for congenial and civilized young women who give a damn. praying it won't be rough young guys of the hooting and hollering sports-watching variety, or worse.
~*~

TUESDAY
Incident While Walking
The under two child had been screaming in that awful way they do when no one is listening and something is wrong.  I wandered over to the bars and hunkered down to her eye level on the ground a bit in front of the bench her caregiver occupied. "Hi" - She stopped crying, looked at me without expression. I smiled and tilted my head in a friendly way. Her caregiver was plugged into her phone immersed in talking and not paying a bit of attention. Suddenly, she made eye contact with me. "Excuse me...I was worried " I said.  Pulling her earbuds out angrily, she stated "She's allowed to cry". "Why not pick her up?" I ventured and that made her furious very fast so she kept repeating  "She's allowed to cry" interspersed with "Move along" and "Mind your business". I was stunned. "This is my neighborhood" I said but there was no conversation available as the litany just continued till I moved away. The child was still on the ground but quiet. I waved bye-bye and crossed the Avenue.  I wanted to take a photo but was intimidated…almost immediately the child was deposited in her carriage and wheeled to the other side and then out to the Avenue. The caregiver spotted me again and took out her I-Pad to take my photo as I continued walking in the same direction she was headed, then I doubled back and went home. Soon I was thinking about the mitigating circumstances - She was the only black caregiver at that time I realized after, but that's not what had prompted me to intervene. I'm well aware that 'black lives matter' and have had 'If you see something say something' drilled into my consciousness. By the way, she was extremely beautiful, coifed elaborately and colorfully dressed, around thirty with a Haitian lilt in her speech.  Sadly, none of the other caregivers or parents paid any attention during the whole brief incident, albeit they were few and scattered in other areas. What conclusion? What lesson? I'm not sure. I found her indifferent, then attacking behavior alarming, I feel even more alien in my neighborhood with my outdated concerns for the environment, for civil discourse and friendliness. I'm living in the past I think and had better update my frame of reference.
(walked back to shoot the now abandoned playground)
~*~

When in Doubt Look Up

To gaze upon the fatal

without commiserating gloom:

what every friend should be--

not one who rends her coat of doom

nor one who lets her ankle rankle

nor her dogged love to the hounds.

Be the cat in catastrophe

who survives eight more dives.

Though in the clutch of damage

a dame must age,

in the crazy-quilt of guilt

it was never your fault.

In the company of morose

always pull out the rose.


Avoid Adapting Others Negative Views

by Sharon Dolin

~*~

LIVING BLISS

Saturday Morning

 Afternoon

 Night

 Teddy Bear and Bunny Bear

watching "Doc Martin", with me in the rocker out of frame

~*~ 

Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

-Stanley Kunitz-

~*~

Sunday Morning

 

Afternoon
.
 Evening
"Ada"
She had an extra ticket for the crosstown bus and gave it to me

 ~*~


Scatter in me the seeds
Of a thousand saplings.
Let grow a grassy heaven.
On my brow: a sun.
This bliss is yours, Living
World, and alone it endures.

 -Yi Lei-

translated by U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith

 ~*~

 Hudson River Park

*

*

  *
The Carousel

(eyes thrust heavenward)

Heading Home
 Looking back
 
 *

Ripe Rose Hips
Dry and Save for Winter
.
NOTE
Mild weather for two days but the heat and humidity
returns Monday Night for the week...and, so it goes.

MIND

The Mind is a Library I Often Visit

Face Book Post

Thursday 7.26.2018

I've been up since 5AM Friendlies, checked in with world and local news and I feel a nap coming on strong so, in parting: My dear departed Aunt Pauline is somewhere in here but I can't find her since I only met her when she was in her forties and I was just a little girl. I remember our vacations in Point Pleasant, New Jersey and the wild blackberries behind the boarding house we stayed at. I remember sleeping over on her fold out couch surrounded by stuffed animal toys in that dark apartment in Yonkers and those memories are enough. Gosh-I never even knew her last name or whose sister she was! She had a 'boyfriend' for decades. He lived in a hotel nearby. Right near the end of her life, I got word they had married and moved in to her place together! Yet I can't see her face at all but to recall it was long and thin, and that she always seemed like an old lady in my memory.

~*~

We say "to my mind", then launch into a statement

We say "I think" before something we desire to tell

We retain impressions for a lifetime from a lifetime

carry them on the ever changing stream of our days

"...and so it goes." - my favorite way to say goodbye.

Thursdays Moon at 8PM

 ~*~

Friday

 Guru Purnima
"In one of Vishnu’s many earthly incarnations, he was born on the full moon of Guru Purnima as the great sage Vyasa, who is said to be the “Guru of Gurus.” Vyasa is credited with organizing and editing the ancient Vedic tree of knowledge, so that it could be read and understood by all."
http://www.anandastrology.com/blog/-mystic-full-moon-of-our-guides-guru-purnima
 *

Lunar Eclipse
"In general, eclipses are omens that herald acceleration, change and world evolution. In the unstable weeks surrounding eclipses, things may seem to wobble or even spin out of control."
http://www.anandastrology.com/blog/lunar-eclipse-mars-mercury-retrograde-silent-power-vedic-astrology


 
 ~*~

THE PRESENT FOR NOW

High Wind and Divided Sky above my building

Monday Weather

July 23rd

 Second Avenue at East 23rd Street

Bus Stop

Note How Much is Going On

The puff of smoke over the Rabbis head while he tries to dial his cell phone is from the young Chinese mans cigarette. He's hidden by that woman passing out of frame far right. Foreground left is a Father/caregiver wearing a tee shirt with cartoon characters I don't recognize and wheeling a sleeping child. The ad inside the bus shelter carries the ominous message: "I saw nothing"

((((whew))))
 ~*~

Domestic Disturbance Tuesday

 10:30PM
The thunder-footed one and her roommate have returned.
My bath wall above the toilet is slowly streaming rivulets of water.
They won't answer their apartment door.
The Super responds. The leak stops.
This is not the first time.
He will return tomorrow to search for a leak within their wall.

 Framed 1906 drawing by unknown artist that hangs there is okay,
only a bit damp on the wood backing.
((((whew))))
~*~

Wednesday
Waited from ten to noon, then informed the Super, left the door locked open and ran some local errands

 Got two audio books at the Library
1. "The Girl who Circumnavigated Fairyland"
by Catherynne M. Valente
2. "I've Got My Eyes on You" by Mary Higgins Clark 

 Windowsill Basil is ready to Reap

'Caterfly'
from Jude who 'didn't forget' me.

Two hours of meditation at the Zendo
Spied this fledgling out the side window

 Goodnight

~*~

WEEKEND JOURNEY

Before the Storm Breaks

Walking in my Neighborhood Saturday

Epiphany Church Garden

Stone Saints Maintain Holy Silence

Trembling Trees

Blooms Below Ground

 Opportunist

~*~

I wrote to a friend about the Gallery opening and reading Friday:

"I was in a strange place last night-both foggy and focused throughout the event-I read well and the work drew special attention after from friends and strangers who praised it. The fogginess hadn't cleared as I wandered home with friend Wendy who decided to accompany me. I was removed the whole time and when I arrived at 21st Street, lay down immediately fully dressed and fell into deep sleep. When I woke a few hours later, I realized that the drawing and the writing had been my main occupation for many weeks and that I was in mourning. Mourning for the family that is no more, the drawing that needs nothing more, and the writing that is done and also gone."
My Art and Text
 http://mscomfortzone.blogspot.com/2018/07/why-make-art.html

We are strange creatures,
we who share our lives and feelings out loud.
 ~*~

Midnight Storm

 

SUNDAY FACE BOOK FAST BEGINS.

~*~

Look over yonder, Apollo at a distance
You can hear his music if you listen to the wind (blow)
I want to be there, I want to be right there

Bear witness, I'm wailing like the wind
Come bear witness, the half-breed rides again
In these hands, I've held the broken dream
In my soul, I'm howling at the moon

Testimony, testimony
Declare yourself, I will testify
Testimony, testimony
Speak the truth, I will testify

I had a revelation like runaway horses
Took to the road with a carnival show (roll on)
Those golden days on Smokey Mountain
Playing guitar in a one man band

Bear witness, I'm howling at the moon
Come bear witness, I've danced among the ruins
In these shoes, I've walked a crooked mile
All my life I been searching for the nightbird

Testimony, testimony…

Are you ready to take the heat
Are you ready to blow the steam
Are you ready to bag the street
You got nothing to lose, but your chains

For forty days and forty nights
I come across the desert
Apollo right by my side (rave on)

Bear witness, I'm wailing like the wind
Come bear witness, the half-breed rides again
In these hands, I've held the broken dream
In my soul, I'm howling at the moon

Testimony, testimony
Declare yourself, I will testify
Testimony, testimony
Speak the truth, I will testify

"In his big and buoyant new memoir, "Testimony," Robertson, who is seventy-three, doesn't necessarily dispel the various myths, legends, and criticisms that have attached themselves to him. Instead, he tries to reframe the conclusions that fans might take from them. For the most part, he downplays his own musical accomplishments—he seems O.K. not being called a genius—and portrays his life as one of a man who was in the right places at the right times."
-Read the whole New Yorker review in Links-

https://youtu.be/U3awYDKUuwI

Morning

 Afternoon

Whether drifting through life on a boat or 

climbing toward old age leading a horse, 

each day is a journey and the journey itself is home. 

-Basho-

~*~

LINKS
New Yorker Book Review
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/robbie-robertson-offers-his-story-of-the-band

WHY MAKE ART?

"So you look at a work of art and think to yourself, I could have done that. And maybe you really could have, but the issue here is more complex than that -- why didn't you? Why did the artist? And why does it have an audience? We delve into it by looking at work by artists like Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Piet Mondrian, and Cy Twombly, among others. You might find it’s not quite as simple as you think."

(5 and 1/2 minutes)

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/67EKAIY43kg?rel=0&amp;controls=0&amp;showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

ART
Bullet Casings Make a Statement
Gallery on West 23rd Street
I meant to say more about this gallery, but misplaced the reference material. Another time perhaps.

~*~

 I've been laboring for weeks to bring a drawing abandoned in 1980 to a finish. No longer the strict botanical one first intended but a new version of it in mixed media with the addition of family photographs.
"The Women"
Parts

details

More Progress Saturday

Still tweaking Sunday

Delivered
Monday July 16th
Friday July 20th Opening
Creative Center Gallery
273 Bowery
NY NY
I'll show the drawing and read these three pieces

1.
The first Cut is the Deepest

Sirens silenced the howling winds.
A bloody trail marked the steps
of a shocked mother rushed
through Emergency to
the operating theater.

An incision of 6 inches was made
through her lower abdomen,
then a second incision
opened her uterus.
I was delivered.

Thus unto this rude world I came.
Elsewhere, my father was
told I was probably dead.
It proved quite untrue.
I howled the proof.

The storm raged all night and day
I was swaddled and held apart.
In recovery, unavailable,
drugged to sleep, my
wounded mother.

What I felt I can not remember,
only imagine the pain of it
the loneliness and fear
of that brutal welcome
hearing wind howl

Childhood amnesia veils it all
for many years until one day
a bleeding wound becomes
the memory of something.
Howling confirms it.

This second cut sinks way down,
down to the level of the first,
carries it upward where
it joins the current pain.
howling's a familiar.

It goes on like that into adolescence
through adulthood and to old age
so that every cut of every kind
might call the first to mind
make a calm wind howl.


2.
Truths
Truth is I never met Mothers mother, Deliah Cunningham because she was dead before I arrived and never met Dorothy Ryan either, nor was I present that terrible day when she ran after the family Boston Terrier, was hit by a car, died and never made it to her Grade School Graduation. I had not yet dropped on to the planet. I did meet Adelaide and Kay, not as they are portrayed in this drawing, but much later when they'd both grown, married and had kids, of which I was one. I never met the woman on the far shore digging for clams because she is a figment of my imagination; he who stands by the sea to suggest the mass Irish migration during the potato famine years that resulted in evictions and pushed many a weeping family to leave their homes or starve. That brings my story to when my own ancestors came to America, and makes me a third generation, carrying a deer horn from the Catskills where my Fathers Mother had a cabin and the rich odor of Pine dominated every season, a brain full of memories and a box of photographs. I visited Nana Slater there childhood Summers, ate wild grapes from the vine and was fattened on wheat porridge with real butter daily. Here's a little poem about the photograph of me and Nana in the Catskills:
'Cottage At Cairo''
A four years old girl in pinafore, smelling of dirt and strawberries, leans reluctantly into her Nana's body.
She frowns, or so it would seem. Perhaps the sun was in her eyes then, that scowl merely the result of squinting.
The Grandmother looks off in to the distance, encircling the child, holding perhaps too tightly? Who knows?

One can not return to ask.

All these women, no longer with me in the flesh,tell the story of how Cunningham became Ryan, one Ryan became Slater and how I was born after the death of a boy child who was carrying his Grandfathers name, which is why I was named Michelle, though I would have loved to be called Micheal. Of course, that was simply not done in forties.

3.

Privet Hedge

When I see a privet hedge I can almost see my mothers childhood...Little Anne Adelaide stands in front of the towering hedge making her slight frame seem even more fragile despite the defiance of her stance. I guess she was not comfortable in the frilly dress or the ridiculously oversized bow and she was, I think, entirely unaware of her scraped knees or the unreliable socks rolling down and certainly unaware of the long future that would delight and disappoint until it finally consumed her. There's a blessing in that initial innocence. Neither future nor past - we live in the ever present only and the rest is fiction. All stories are fictions of a sort and every fact is relative.

I look at her in the drawing, sitting with her fierce Mother whose face is the map of her own experience, her older sister Dorothy, the truly defiant one so obviously annoyed at having to pose and her oldest sister Kay who stands like a lighthouse staring straight and true, directly at the camera, I'm touched by the way my little mother to be leans in looking up for some sort of approval. I recognize the gesture and am flooded with compassion for her.

Where, I wondered, was the brother. Perhaps he was snapping that photo for it was not a professional shot, but the sort a family takes for itself. Then, quite suddenly I realize I don't want to lift them up out of this frame, ignite them into presence, poor things. Haven't they suffered the gaze of the world long enough? Haven't they done their duty as they saw it then to the best of their ability and who am I to invade their privacy when they can no longer respond, to construct fantasies on my assumptions. Surely they don't deserve this treatment.

Perhaps I've simply become all of them...that stern mother with her mask concealing pain, my own mother needing recognition, the sad, impulsive sister and the eldest sure and confident.

If there were reincarnation, I'd be that deeply rooted privet hedge whose tiny white blooms sweeten the air gently, sufficient unto themselves, asking nothing in return.

~*~

Links
Just found again about the  Gallery
http://www.hgcontemporary.com/ 

The Creative Center
http://www.thecreativecenter.org/tcc/our_organization/