The Weight of the Invisible

I. the weight of invisible things

Book's Girl (she's nineteen!) had the day off yesterday. In her absence, I powered through a ton of books she'd stashed like a chipmunk's hoard-- here and there and everywhere.

At the end of the day, I was laughing with Grateful-J (aka Mr Mushroom, because he's a forest forager)--both saying how organized we are at work but how disorganized at home.

"I move furniture all day at work, no problem," he said. "But at home, which I want to get organized, I work for a few minutes and I'm exhausted. It's like everything there is so much heavier to move..."

"You've got to factor in the weight of invisible things at home though" I said. "History, senses, feelings, memory... Those weigh a lot!"

Grateful-J agreed.

He has been made assistant manager at the thrift store.
Luckily he's nothing like Ass't Man. To begin with, unlike A.M., Grateful-J stopped drinking a couple years ago. The difference in his personality has been gradual, but startling.

Startlingly wonderful!
He used to rage in disgust against other people--and himself.
He'll still slip into a little of that--but in far milder form, and far less often.
Now he's not bloated with self-hate (and fluids), he even holds himself differently. I think he's up for the job.

Grateful-J always set up toy scenes, no matter what, and that hasn't changed.
He did the Dino, and I added the Axolotl:

_____________________

II. Raymond Briggs

I was happy to bring home a donated, signed copy of Raymond Brigg's graphic memoir of his parents, Ethel & Ernest: A True Story (1998)--with a note tucked in from the people who got the book signed as a gift for "Carol" 26 years ago:

I read the whole thing last night--powerful in an understated way. There's a theme of the introduction of modern home-improvements, for instance--every decade the father gets newfangled things, like a fridge of the tele-vision, which the mother is skeptical of.

Briggs said illustrating his parents' deaths was the hardest thing he'd done. "He told the Guardian in 2004 that when drawing the scenes of his parents' deaths, he could work for no more than a quarter of an hour at a time."

I was glad to read that-- it's how I've felt whenever I've written or drawn things about my mother's death. Like radioactivity--the feeling is invisible, but it's heavy.

Briggs's most famous book is The Snowman. I know him from his graphic novel When the Wind Blows (1982). It's about a working-class couple like his parents who, when the UK is hit with a nuclear bomb, trustingly follow ludicrous (and real) government advice about what to do in case of nuclear attack.
He shows them hiding from radiation under a door, for instance.

Oh! Here's the shelter they make from the actual government pamphlet, Protect and Survive (1980)--you can see it at the Imperial War Museum website:

III. Curlicues

Raymond Briggs was a considerate man, I am guessing from his signature--he writes it and the greeting out, legibly:

The Peak Doll Directory ^  is from 1972--it's one person's production: a printed compilation of doll collectors' addresses, with brief statements of what they offer to sell or buy--or just invitations to be pen pals.
Old-fashioned social media.

I also got that vintage Chinese doll sitting in the basket--can you see her three pigtails stick out from her head? (Hm, not really visible.)
She is missing a foot and says it's from a shark attack--the same way girlette Pearl Duquette lost an arm!
The two have met and are saying we need to do a photo shoot of a reenactment:
"It's for healing from trauma", they say.

Ha. This would be true if they were humans, but I KNOW THEM!
They borrow these human ideas to explain why they "need" to do things they want to do for fun.

The basket has the most darling curlicues all over it, like a poodle.
Is it black ash? It might be.
bink & I went to a workshop this week on making baskets from black ash trees--led by a local Native artist Naneque LaTender.

Here's bink with strips of fresh ash wood, hammered and pulled from a felled tree:

Scraping and cutting the strips set off bink's concussion--made her dizzy--so we only stayed an hour. I was fine with leaving early because I impatient; I only wanted to do the fun part--the weaving.
I am still the child who doesn't wait 15 minute before eating the marshmallow.