The heat has relented to a point where i am cogent - with help from the kind local bistro that delivered sliced fresh vegetables that i can either sauté, or eat raw. My power is waning and it is disconcerting to accept that i am past the zenith of any force i ever imagined i possessed as a puny human - and i’m okay with that. Now it becomes an issue of meting out the droplets of my time left in such a way that benefit the most with the least effort on my part · sort of like every other day of my life. There is no lock, there is no, as Leonard Cohen said so well, “perfect offering.” There is a gruesome future we all face that can be mitigated with kindness and determination. Heat is nothing new to our species as is ignorance and stupidity. That my birth culture is facing a massive comeuppance for heinous behavior is nothing new - whether she contains, again as Leonard Cohen suggested “the best and of the worst” · remains to be seen. The world has now witnessed our dirty laundry, whether there is any grace left in the fabric remains to be seen.
As a young turk, utterly convinced of my worthwhile contribution to the legacy of fine art i was absorbed by fashioning my link to the chain of fine art that Master Cézanne described; today i would be content that anything i ever made was treated kindly with some respect for the sincerity of my efforts - and i possess grave doubts about that hope. I was raised by inordinately creative parents · with all the detritus that comes from that volatile mix. They spun so heavily against each other that they barely made it out of their 2nd decade together, yet they bore four powerful children who demonstrate much of the dissonance one might find considering closely their life together. That discomfort is less and less important to me as i approach my own demise as finding out what was successful in their pairing and advocate on behalf of more.
I read Buckminster Fuller and find little sunlight between his thinking and my own (plagiarism in its most useful form.) - one quote of particular interest at this turn is “There is no energy crisis, food crisis or environmental crisis; there is only a crisis of ignorance.” It is beyond belief that we as a species can aggregate for the celebration of physical prowess, but cannot manifest cooperation enough to protect the medical community from an airborne particle. I believe it is rooted in passive aggressive resentment toward a medical industry that routinely charges $50 for a single aspirin, but lacks the gumption to question why a medical MBA executive is more valuable to the world community than any individual scrubbing a lethal microbe from the floors of any hospital on our suffering planet? Consider me mystified.
But not acquiescent. My father was a tough motherfucker for a high school English teacher/poet. It seems he saved his hardest lessons for me; he gave no quarter, and i gave him none, but in the end it was his death alone that taught me the value of loss and love. Ma, she’s an entirely different equation that demonstrates thoroughly his attraction for her as mate and mother of his children, but belies understanding of her as an individual. She has sat in a room full of our nuclear family and stated to all that i had suffered more than any of the other children, and yet has heaped more abuse on my shoulders than any of my siblings for reasons that elude me to this date - July 10, 2020, in nine days she will turn 92, and by her design as near as i can tell she wants me no where near her for that event.
As it happens i am quarantined in one of the few nations Covid-19 free, and i wouldn’t put it past her to have arranged this circumstance, by hook or crook. She is my mother and i love her dearly, though she would deny that to anyone listening, as she has maligned me to each of my siblings for some sacred purpose only she can know. My task is only to love her as best as i can with the cards that have been dealt me - alone as i feel she wishes to be when she faces her greatest adversary - death · She is not the warm fuzzy mama depicted on all the channels we read, as i have learned is more common than any of us wish to share. My mother is an uncommonly decent human who was confused by shotgun blasts in desert cabins and hitched rides through barren wastelands when no more than a little girl - i accept that about my parent and hope that she feels the deep love i feel for her struggle to pass into the great beyond with some measure of peace at a time when the entire planet is struggling to do the same - love to all · with intransigent peace.
jts 10/07/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
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