I haven’t felt like writing these days past. Or creating anything of significance, besides a mound of stretched faces full of wrinkles and squints squeezed and rolled between my palms. And that was a fleeting want last night, banished by the realization that art costs money. And I don’t really “get” money enough to know whether I’m able to spend it on clay these days.
Grays.
I’m finding things out slowly, unraveling, winding out like yarn in the way Kant postulated was grounds for this universe. I’m finding that I hold myself back. I’m finding that I’m often balanced on some plane between reality and imagination and unclear on what’s worthy of belief.
A friend wrote me a letter this week. In which he informed me that I’m going to miss out on a lot of love in life because I don’t give myself over. But I do give myself, just in doses. I am honest and I am real. He criticized that I don’t give out love fully. and it’s true –
Until recently I hadn’t come across anyone I’d be willing to do that for [and scare me shitless now the possibility is there]
Anyway, I haven’t felt like writing much. I didn’t know what I’d have to write about
maybe
the ghosts of leaves that smear in auburn shadows on the sidewalk, pressed there first by a breeze then by some moisture which clung them to the stone. Ground in again by the soles of who knows how many shoes and eventually disintegrated into these magick autumn specter’s.
Or I could write about the mystery fruit that hangs from the tree on Prospect street-
baby lychee Christmas ornaments, round pink spindles tender to the touch and velveteen. I can’t resist picking one every time I walk by – so barely clinging to the branch that it nearly volunteers to drop into my hand and the sound it makes is a quiet rip of firm balmy meat as I tear it in half and observe the peach color and moisture innards.
Or what of the woman I saw two days ago, as I sat outside Cafe Luna in bright fall.
Two children with her, one about 4 and the other I’d guess around 2. The younger was climbing on a chair and he fell straight over it, onto the concrete below. She yelled his name and rushed to help him up from the ground. He starts to cry. Standing him upright, a bright red smear of blood blossomed onto his forehead. The woman SCREAMED. She picked up the child and put him into the carriage, needing to go. Telling the other child to follow, she began running with the carriage in one direction, it was clear she had no destination she just needed to move. Another woman chased after her and told her there was a fire house just across the street.
I am sitting here, thinking this is the last thing I want to witness right now. I can’t handle this right now. I’m pushing it to the periphery of my thoughts as everyone around me rubbernecks agape.
The woman runs back towards me, the firehouse to my rear. She is shouting continuously and nonsensically. She is sobbing. I look at the hurt child in the carriage and it is plain as day to me that he is fine. He’s cut his forehead and his cheeks are stained with tears, but he is fine. She runs into traffic with both children. Someone shouts that they’ll be hit by a car. Over in the firehouse, she SHRIEKS at the top of her lungs that she needs help she SHRIEKS and SHRIEKS and her crazed desperation reverberates off the open garage walls all around us. I close my eyes and turn it all off.
It’s this kind of emotional self-protection that I’m not sure I should be engaging in.
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V'Artichoke 