BirchLane.net
November 2005
Wednesday 30
Really? Today is the last day of the month? Where did November go? This afternoon, my friend, Rebekah, stopped over and asked if I wanted to go for a walk at Audubon. I said yes. She power-walked and I walked slowly looking for a photograph. I found this:
And this:
And this:
It was an unusually Spring-like day and it felt good to get outside--and to get off the bike path and out into the woods.
"45 Mercy Street" by Anne SextonIn my dream,
drilling into the marrow
of my entire bone,
my real dream,
I'm walking up and down Beacon Hill
searching for a street sign --
namely MERCY STREET.
Not there.I try the Back Bay.
Not there.
Not there.
And yet I know the number.
45 Mercy Street.
I know the stained-glass window
of the foyer,
the three flights of the house
with its parquet floors.
I know the furniture and
mother, grandmother, great-grandmother,
the servants.
I know the cupboard of Spode
the boat of ice, solid silver,
where the butter sits in neat squares
like strange giant's teeth
on the big mahogany table.
I know it well.
Not there.Where did you go?
45 Mercy Street,
with great-grandmother
kneeling in her whale-bone corset
and praying gently but fiercely
to the wash basin,
at five A.M.
at noon
dozing in her wiggy rocker,
grandfather taking a nap in the pantry,
grandmother pushing the bell for the downstairs maid,
and Nana rocking Mother with an oversized flower
on her forehead to cover the curl
of when she was good and when she was...
And where she was begat
and in a generation
the third she will beget,
me,
with the stranger's seed blooming
into the flower called Horrid.I walk in a yellow dress
and a white pocketbook stuffed with cigarettes,
enough pills, my wallet, my keys,
and being twenty-eight, or is it forty-five?
I walk. I walk.
I hold matches at street signs
for it is dark,
as dark as the leathery dead
and I have lost my green Ford,
my house in the suburbs,
two little kids
sucked up like pollen by the bee in me
and a husband
who has wiped off his eyes
in order not to see my inside out
and I am walking and looking
and this is no dream
just my oily life
where the people are alibis
and the street is unfindable for an
entire lifetime.Pull the shades down --
I don't care!
Bolt the door, mercy,
erase the number,
rip down the street sign,
what can it matter,
what can it matter to this cheapskate
who wants to own the past
that went out on a dead ship
and left me only with paper?Not there.
I open my pocketbook,
as women do,
and fish swim back and forth
between the dollars and the lipstick.
I pick them out,
one by one
and throw them at the street signs,
and shoot my pocketbook
into the Charles River.
Next I pull the dream off
and slam into the cement wall
of the clumsy calendar
I live in,
my life,
and its hauled up
notebooks.
Tuesday 29
WOW.
Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.
~~T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)What can I say about what happened today? After a very restless night of sleep (If I slept at all), I woke to find this e-mail:
I have a gallery in Denver and also have an art consulting firm. We have been in business for 30 years...you can check our web site for more info about us: Sandy Carson Gallery.
I've been intrigued with your photos for a long time...just waiting for the right client to show them to and I, believe, that we have found one....
......I am interested in doing a series of images of the mill pond that you so effectively depicted in B/W and color and at different times of the day and primarily during the Fall. It reminds me of Monet's compositional and light variations of his series on Chartre, lily pond, haystacks etc.
The images are accessible but thought provoking in their characterization of the nuances of change in a given environment.... they help the viewer understand that there is an ongoing transformation and evolution in a given landscape. Sometimes the change is slight; sometimes birds inhabit the scene, sometimes the grasses become the emphasis rather than the water, sometimes the log protrusions become geometric constructions in an otherwise organic surround.......I spoke with Sandy early afternoon and she has in fact sold 6 prints. I am speechless. She represents a number of artists whose work I love: Carol Golemboski and Andre Modica--to name two.
Monday 28
Mercury in Retrograde. Communications systems down. Gray.
Sunday 27
Challenge. I think I need to meditate on a new project: I think my landscapes and portraits are great but I want to develop a new idea. I just do not know what it is--yet.
Saturday 26
Cold. I woke at 4:30 and began to further unpack and get loft in order.
Friday 25
Small Steps. I finished fixing the closet which will now allow me to move boxes into it and get the downstairs clean and organized.
Thursday 24
Thanksgiving. Woke to snow:
"...Before considering the question that is seemingly always the most immediate one and the only urgent one, What shall we do? we ponder this: How must we think? For thinking is genuine activity, genuine taking a hand, if to take a hand means to lend a hand to...the coming to presence of Being."
~Martin Heidegger
Daryl and Danielle came over for breakfast. We ate pancakes. Danielle fell to sleep on the futon.
Wednesday 23
Chores and The Pre-Raphaelites and Bouguereau. Lastly, we talked about Bouguereau.
Tuesday 22
Because It Is Tuesday.
It is raining today.
And I have yet to venture outside.
Darkness and mist descend the mountain.
Ducks quacked through the night.
Laughing from the black surface of The Lower Mill Pond.
I was kept up for hours and hours.
Lessons are life. Symbols.
I can't speak.
Water. Water.
I am thirsty.
Cold outside.
Hello. Goodbye. Thank You.
Follow me.
This is the way.
No one taught me this.
Tell me what you see.
We will go to the opera.
I miss Prague sometimes.
How are you today?
I will make a wish.
Thank you for the lesson.
On Monday I wrote a poem.
I have come a long way.
Volcanic.
Like ash in it's history.
In the cemetery the singer stood and she stared.
It was almost paradise.
It is so peaceful here.
Nature greets our eyes.
Innocence.
The sound of breathing or rustling leaves.
It is a wonder.
That it is.
All connected.
With this lesson I will teach you.
This is not a mystery.
The cathedral was a triumph over space.
It is safe here.
This is the city where we gather to be educated.
I wish I could remember everything that was said.
Do you want any water?
It is now late.
In sleep dreams.
I knew she had something important to show me.Monday 21
6:50 and a third interview. It was 9:03 and there was a knock on my door. It was Tom. He was here to interview for the sales position. I had thought we were going to meet downstairs at Blue Moon for coffee but him coming here (a loft chock-filled with art) worked, I think, for a better conversation. Toward the end he said, "Your passion for art is a good fit for our company strengths."
Sunday 20
Reference Point. Yesterday Olga and I went to The Worcester Art Museum. I have been meaning to visit it for years. It is a beautiful place with an excellent collection and a few very interesting current exhibitions: Willie Cole and Frontiers.
Tonight Daryl and Kiley came over for dinner. I made baked chicken cutlets, and broccoli with garlic. We watched both the Colts/Bengals game and The Titanic. I love it when they come over. I love them. And they loved the coziness and warmth of Studio # 9.
Daryl was tired:
Saturday 19
Masterpiece. Not what I expected. A captivating movie.
http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?co
ntentid=6085
http://www.mandiapple.com/snowblood/ataleoftwosisters.htm
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007M2374/104-7139689-2020709?v=glance&n=130&v=g lance
http://films.tartanfilmsusa.com/ataleoftwosisters/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2004/06/29/tale_of_two_sisters_2004_review.shtml Friday 18
Quietude.
Thursday 17
Wednesday 16
Very Early.
Tuesday 15
7:20.
My neighbor, Beth.
Monday 14.
More in Loft.
Sunday 13
The Kitchen. Watched "Sylvia" tonight. I liked it.
Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.
Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.
I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.
All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.
One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square
Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.
~"Morning Song," Sylvia PlathSaturday 12
Art Walk. I went with some Eastwork's friends to Northampton's Art Walk. Shelley's work was featured at Watkins Gallery. All of us were duly impressed with Christophe's photographs.
- Yet each man kills the thing he loves
- By each let this be heard,
- Some do it with a bitter look,
- Some with a flattering word,
- The coward does it with a kiss,
- The brave man with a sword!
Some kill their love when they are young,- And some when they are old;
- Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
- Some with the hands of Gold:
- The kindest use a knife, because
- The dead so soon grow cold.
Some love too little, some too long,- Some sell, and others buy;
- Some do the deed with many tears,
- And some without a sigh:
- For each man kills the thing he loves,
- Yet each man does not die.
~Oscar Wilde, excerpt from "The Ballad of Reading Gaol"
Chaya, poet.
Friday 11
The Interviews. Interviewed with owner and operations manager today. I think they went well.
Thursday 10
Bathroom. Medicine cabinet purchased. Hung. Bathroom cleaned. Ready. Next--kitchen. Sill must solve issue of fallen closet-rod in walk-in closest in loft. Hung some art. Tomorrow--second interview at printing company.
Wednesday 09
Moved. Completely.
Tuesday 08
Still Moving.
Monday 07
Moving Day.
Sunday 06
Moving.
Saturday 05
Friday 04.
An Interview.
Thursday 03
Stories.
Wednesday 02
The Switch.
Tuesday 01
Moving. Right now--early Tuesday evening--I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. And at the same time somewhat at peace. My landlord is trying to make this work for me: how to explain? My neighbor moved out of his two-window apartment today to a three-window down the hall. A couple who live down the hall in a one window apartment want a two window. But the woman who prints my photos is moving into it. However, she stopped in today and saw mine, which is a three window and fell in love with the space. So......if the couple down the hall (they have a little child) like the two window, I will move into the one window and my friend will take mine. Does this make sense? This will be a BIG change for me. A one window is small. Very small. It is a studio apartment not unlike a college dorm room. And I will have to sell some some furniture--or put most of it in storage here in the building. But I feel good about this. It is also almost half of what I am paying for rent for the three-window. I feel good about letting go. By letting go I feel I am getting something back.
The time will come
When, with elation,
You will greet yourself arriving
At your own door, in your own mirror,
And each will smile at the other's welcome,
And say, sit here, Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
To itself, to the stranger who has loved you
All your life, whom you ignored
For another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
The photographs, the desperate notes,
Pell your image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.~Derek Walcott, "Love After Love"
