Tuesday, January 19, 2021

January


The sky is white again. The complexities of living throw you off lately. It’s been months since the light of unraveling words made the day shine. Reading hampers the spirit depending on subject matter. You grow apart from time to time. No way to escape. Travel banned. How many times can one go grocery shopping? You have many projects to change the time. Numbness sets in instead. You know it will go. It always does. But here you are. The grim skyline does not amuse. You should not have communicated with the brother. It’s alway like an ax in the back. Unless there’s a check involved. Not a fevered pitch to create from. It’s a start. To acknowledge the hole in the work. To acknowledge the need to escape from reality through books. It happens. You remembered how much you loved the auto rickshaw on longer journeys. Moving. The destination never matters. Moving. That day in Delhi when you bought your first dress in ages. Earrings. A scarf trailing in the breeze like Isadora Duncan. Those dreams are but snippets of larger desires. Repetition drives you mad. Daily dullness makes for restlessness. The tools are gone. No stamping, soldering, polishing, metal cutting or casting. The sky is white again.

As you get older it is harder to imagine a better destiny. Then Ana comes along. So full of life. Orchestrating a weekly feast. Her valiant helpers. The needy following Covid rules. A bit of clothes and plenty to eat. Then there’s India of the soothing voice who prompts you to thread the sewing machine, get an old cotton tablecloth, stain it with leaves and rust. Make south East Asian pants and a flowing smock. Female things. Resurrecting your hippie, gypsy self. The sun peeks over the dread skyline and life begins again. Relationships through technology are a bore. Unreal. Lifeless but useful. You look at the Himalayas and want to climb through the screen. The neighbor makes his daily lengthy OCD projections doing god knows what. Every day, all day. Will you ever change? Every place is a problem.


There are things to be done here. Let the ghosts of the past wail on their own. Give the numbness a kick. Spring will be here in two months. The ugliness in the news will change but never go away. The day after MLK day and it’s still here. Better but not enough. The sun is trying hard and so should you. A clean, well lit place, warm, with books & studio. Stop carping and get to work. Sorrow solves nothing. The day breaks. Life begins again. Every day. Use it well.