(April 08, 2020/ Photo: Jorge Ibanez)
Last evening, late afternoon shortly before dinner, our neighborhood owl was owling away somewhere in the backyard trees thick canopy. I went out to see if I could spot it, but it was not in our backyard owl-tree near my bedroom window where it likes to perch, but rather somewhere in farther trees, maybe even a couple of backyards back by 10th place or even 11th avenue. ‘Good’, I thought or, rather, preferred to think. It continued to owl ominously, or maybe sounded that way as it complemented this feeling of staring into an abyss that is slowly opening before us.
The world has been here before and it was not pretty.
Wanda and I have put ourselves on a pretty tight quarantine. I routinely do still another disinfecting tour around the house even as we are very careful to follow all protocol not to bring anything new in. But considering our age and the condition of my lungs (god bless them…) we have come to accept that it would be a very real and quite inconvenient possibility that one of us or (given the way we usually go…) both would keel over from this, so nothing is too careful. OCD has been redefined.
In the meantime, one thing that I have been following with curiosity is how social media has exploded with articles and all kinds of antics about how to deal with isolation. I understand I do have a certain advantage over a good deal of humanity, since I have always leaned toward kind of a monastic personality. Introverts own this moment. But it is like people have freaked out when told they should (and in some cases, have to) shelter in place, don’t move and we’ll get through this. Like everyone was so afraid to just stop and stay put with themselves. (see below 1) It is actually like the world for a change has come to meet us artists in our world and can not appreciate or handle it. The blogosphere is bursting with advice on how to handle the ‘sense of isolation’ and ‘loneliness’! But being alone is not the same as being lonely. There is a value judgement wrapped in that word.
‘If you’re lonelly when you’re alone, you’re in bad company’ attributed to Jean-Paul Sartre
But be that as it may, for Wanda and me, on the other hand, this whole affair has come at a very peculiar moment, like if on cue.
As we were both coming out of respective very stressful and draining life situations and jumping into the unknown (literally a leap of faith), we were not sure what was ahead and had competing plans on how we were going to handle that fact. The much dreaded ‘Retirement’ word. Sure, take a road trip to North Carolina was up there in the list and even a prolonged meandering road trip with only a time length as a limit, just to allow the dust of the road cleanse us. However I, being the way I am, was already planning a couple of art shows, getting a part time job, and on and had even drawn Excel charts and tables. I think it is technically called ‘denial’. And then, life said “No, you’re going to stop, look, and listen. Now, sit!”.
So, instead of like a ‘house arrest’, for us it has been more like a spiritual retreat we did not know we needed and then discovered we could certainly use. Maybe the absolute certitude that I would no way survive a Covid-19 bout helps. Or that I am ‘sheltered-in-place’ with a killer gourmand (well, maybe that’s not the proper adjective at this moment…), who can turn into a tall mug of hot Earl Grey tea when events challenge her. Some perks may be helping, granted…
But it has forced us to slow down to meditate and consider and has created time and opportunity for some decompressing mutual communication.
As distractions disappeared, we sit, we think (not fret, think) and we talk. Besides our regular shared breakfast, neighborhood walks and shared lunches (none of which we had for far too many years), we have a mid-afternoon coffee date and a ‘cocktail hour’ in the living room before dinner. And those are sweet and precious moments where we share our thoughts. And it is known that to explain yourself you have to organize your thoughts and data turns into information. And the future slowly comes into focus. And we wait and we work on our spirits, giving ourselves time for ‘moving meditation’, Wanda (see below 2) in her own way, me (see below 3) in mine. And we sit.
And slowly it is becoming clear this is none other than a full reboot that we will have now to defend. Precisely, I just ran into an interesting article that warns about the upcoming campaign of ‘normalization’ that will hit us pretty soon from all quarters. We can now ‘go back to normal’. Which is the most reactionary position you could take. There should be no ‘going back’. This could be the best opportunity, albeit painful, for reconsidering what is, what should be, what is not about you. Just sit. You will never (hopefully…) have this opportunity again.
Just yesterday, during our ‘cocktail hour’, Wanda told me “I finally feel like I am coming out of a fog, a daze…”. And that was sweet…
Yesterday afternoon, Wanda pulled a chair back into the far side of the backyard. Took her gardening journal with her and alternated writing, observing, listening and writing some more, while I was reading in my studio.
Later she came in to tell me she had seen our resident cardinals couple glide down to the paved path in our backyard where we had laid down some seeds for them and for the squirrels that, truth be told, had been making much better use of the bounty. She says that after pecking on the seeds briefly, the male cardinal started picking up seeds with his beak and putting them on the female’s beak, who accepted them without any fuzz. And then both flew off.
“You know, we are cardinals”, she said, utterly convinced. And I smiled, she’s always so right.
The days are packed, but I may still try writing maybe a tragedy about King Lear.
It’s all Lennon’s mind games.
From the big picture perspective, it is all a process. And giving birth is painful
As I write this this morning, still dark, the owl is repeatedly owling with insistence. Like any neighborhood avian at the break of dawn. Be well, and remember to dance the Tutti-frutti.
(1) On the other hand, it has been amazing how the human spirit has come forth in these moments of such uncertainty as we reach out in so many ways to comfort and be comforted, to offer love and compassion as technology takes its rightful place and the internet for once does what it had been expected to be and ‘social media’ lives up to its moniker. Traumatic events like this one bring realignment of possibilities and priorities and it is certain that in many ways things will not be the same. There is no ‘going back’ to normal.
(2) Wanda, intuitive that she is, has attacked with gusto the backyard and has transformed it into a humble little heaven on earth. And the way I see her diving into the praxis I am sure that is not different from a moving meditation. I tell her that I design in two dimensions, she designs in three and, honestly, I see that as superior. And again, it is the process. Landscape gardening is one of the top mindfulness endeavors, taken by the Japanese to higher Zen levels. And her work is there to be enjoyed by humans, squirrels and cardinals alike. And, occasionally, by Steve’s cat. I doubt that cat would give a damn about my prints.
(3) I have slowed down on my prints’ art shows, giving them more thought and enjoying the process, something I had lost. The process is the way, you lose sight of the process, you’re not there. I have started some non-fiction readings, among them a book by Frank Snowden, ‘Epidemics and Society’, in which he studies how past pandemics have shaped history as much as wars, art and science. How what at first were targeted responses to the emergencies became the new normal that will become definitory to ‘society’. “Hey, people stopped spitting on the street or throwing your feces out in the street (Mr. Crapper finally refined the modern toilet)”. Those were first ordered to the public like ‘stay in place’ is now. On that same vein, I recommend also this article, from the Smithsonian Magazine online.
