Get Up
I woke up at 5:46 this morning. I don't like getting up in the dark, but if I wait for sunrise, now as we tick toward winter solstice, I have to wait till 7:30.
So I got up, wide awake.
And in a good mood. I'm happy and a little surprised by that. Work has been so stupid!
{deleted rant about work---helpful to write it out, don't need to keep it on here}
Rise Up
So, why am I in a good mood?
Last night an old friend called to talk about art. She had volunteered to lead a conversation on the topic at the Racial Justice group at her (mostly white) church.
"I don't know anything about art," she said.
"You do!" I said. "We live right in the middle of an art movement for racial justice." (She lives near me.) "One of the almost instantaneous responses to the police murdering George Floyd was.... art! It went up on walls all over town.
We're so close to it, we don't perhaps realize how extraordinary it is, but it is."
She agreed, she'd been thinking about that--wasn't sure how to approach it...
We talked for an hour, excitedly.
After we hung up––("hung up"? what do you call ending a call on a smartphone?)––I went to my "Justice for George Floyd" posts here and pulled photos for her that I took mostly at George Floyd Memorial Square, the site of his murder (still there, still unofficial).
A group of artists calling themselves #CreativesAfterCurfew (there was a curfew) painted many. This one from 6/1/20 expresses the hope of a new birth arising from the destruction:
"In order to rise from its own ashes a phoenix must first burn." --Octavia Butler [Parable of the Sower]
It was energizing to talk to someone smart and thoughtful about creative expression and the possibility of growth, personal and social.
I felt smart and thoughtful myself, and fun! --which made me realize how ground down I feel at work.
I keep thinking I should wait it out till we have a new president and Covid lightens up--Dr. Fauci said yesterday that we could start to see "signs of herd immunity by late March or early April", as more and more people get vaccinated.
There's goodness in my work, but it's really hard to carry on without support.
I don't need to decide anything now--I can carry on with my own personal work.
I keep thinking of lines for a lichen sonnet--but they don't fit the rhythm! Ergh. That's the fun of it--getting the fit right.
It's easy to say "lichen is as weird as your elbow" in prose.
On we go!
When I first got to Boulder, Colorado in the 80s I was without a job and searching. I soon discovered a man with a quarry. It seems that in the early days the sidewalks in Denver were made from actual stone. The stone was quarried in large slabs from a variety of places. This man's quarry was located near Lions Colorado on the highway to Estes Park. There was also a fairly large heard of once domesticated now turned feral goats that ran around those hills, but I digress.
ReplyDeleteWhen the stones were quarried the edges were trimmed off to make them square so they would fit together properly. The pieces that were trimmed off were cast down the hillside into a huge pile, appropriately called, “the dump.” Over the years, just one side, the one that was properly aligned with the sun, would grow lichen. Delicate little plants seeking a life in that forsaken semi-desert. It was my job to drive a small truck, a machine slightly larger than a heavy duty pickup truck, into the quarry, along the top of the dump, and gather slum stones to carry back to Denver. Because of the climate not much lichen grew, but that which did was highly prized by rich folks in Denver wishing to build a landscaped wall. The slum stones were basically cubed in shape so the fit perfectly into a wall. And properly done the wall would look very old, like it had been there for a long time. It was that lichen that helped with that charade.
So that delicate plant that you have been observing, was the focal point for some rich homes in Denver and it gave me employment at a time when I had no income. Life was soon comfortable and smooth again.
Tom
I don't know anything about art, I just know what I like to look at. I dislike things that are labelled "meaningful" and just look like odd splashes of paint to me.
ReplyDeleteTJ Davis--That's fascinating--what a peculiar little business---who'd think there'd be a market for lichen-covered stones?
ReplyDeleteThough, hm, come to think of it--it reminds me of how old, weathered wood was in demand a few years ago (maybe still is).
RIVER: I guess art is like anything---as you get to know it better, you appreciate the less familiar aspects of it. (...Or not!)
--Frex = Fresca