Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Windows & Laundry

LEFT: My Summer Windowsill

Hm...  Window comes from the Old Norse ‘vindr – wind’ + ‘auga – eye’ = "wind eye". (Per Wikipedia)

Blogging is an "I Eye"... and I've missed it, though I've also not really wanted to do it.
I've barely blogged at all since I came back from Camino a year-and-a-bit ago.

What have I been doing?

I spent most of the past year hanging out with Mz, who moved here last July (2011):
being in her physical presence and talking all the time took the edge off needing or wanting to write much.

I've also been going through a job change, which took huge amounts of energy.
I've been working as a nursing aide at a nursing home since mid-April (3+ months now).
The work is good.
Helping people with physical necessities provides instant moral gratification,
a luxury after 10 years working behind the scenes on writing projects that I never got much feedback on.

[Translation: You *know* you've done good when you help someone use the toilet and clean up afterward. You *trust* you've done good when you've added useful information about, say, malaria to a geography book for school libraries.]

Lately though I've been feeling the limitations of this physical here-&-now job.
I'm not finding a lot of imagination on the job. Material for imagination, yes, but not imagination itself in play.

Illness and pain and worry (on the part of the residents) dull imagination, of course.
But more than that, the home is basically a TV-watching culture.
I've thought about bringing art materials in, but we aides barely have time to attend to basics, much less to play.

So, I'd better up my own play, here or elsewhere.

Actually, I already started:
Here's a 35 sec. micromovie I filmed, "Laundry Basket" last week; and Mz made the music on water glasses.
 
Laundry Basket from Infinity Café Flicks on Vimeo.