mexico, part ii

in Todos Santos we stay in a huge poured cement house with mismatched linens and doors that slam. in every room there is a dead bug on its back. some with wings, some without. one night, clutching tequila and limes in plastic tumblers, all of us gather to peer over a particularly many-legged one and try to decide if it is a cockroach or not.

it is.

the waves sheer feet from the beach. the noise is so intense we are often startled from sleep trying to decide if there is thunder outside or not. the moon is waxing while we are there. the pale reach of it is cool and dusty like fluorescent bulbs. one night i rise from the bed to see if we had left a light on and instead got an eyeful of moonlight in an instant when the curtains groped into the room on a breeze.

we buy tortillas by the two dozen, stagger out of the bodegas delirious with joy and open the damp brown paper parcels on the ride home. the road to the house is so bad we have to let our jaws go slack so our teeth don't cracks and slam into each other over the ruts.

in the afternoons everyone separates like a fraying rope. some to verandas to torque the cracked and dusty plastic chairs on back legs and regard the tide. some to those deep and disoriented naps the seaside breaks across the day; waking crease-faced and bleary at strangely lit early evening hours.

some days we realize we haven't eaten enough and catch ourselves looking around, baffled, with our shirts on backwards and our hairpins falling out. we grate large blocks of soft cheese over the little corn tortillas, push them around in a wide, scratched aluminum skillet. the stove, four gaping and sooty burners sunk into the concrete counter, hisses solemnly when we spin the sticky dials. there is no pilot light, only that clandestine smell of gas blooming in the air. if we are too slow at ticking the butane lighter across the burners, a howl of blue light and flames swoop and swallow our arms briefly, the hair on our forearms singeing, fronds of ash pale and curled against our skin.

on the fourth day we buy oranges from the bed of a pickup truck, the sign is written in pink and green chalk and has curled at the corners from the damp air. we buy ten kilos of fruit in a crackling plastic net sleeve and try to count out our coins without looking too baffled. sometimes the denominations snag in our brains, decimal points and conversions leaping about and tangling. in the end, sheepishly, we hand over bills of inappropriate size and ready our palms for a rain of change in tiny coins. this jumps and rattles in the car. some of the oranges escape the bag and go knocking forwards at backwards as we jerk home.

the oranges are dusty, perfectly round and heavy. green and gray patches are streaked over their sides. so much juice comes out of them we grow suspicious. surely so much could not be contained in such a small vessel? we drink some, peer at the folding juicer, put our glasses down, pick them up, squint into the cloudy depths, drink some more and shake our heads. the seeds are enormous

mexico part i: san jose del cabo to la paz

San Jose Del Cabo : : El Triunfo : : La Paz : : El Tesoro : : Pichilingue : : La bahia de muertos/ -de suenos buenos : : Todos Santos : : El pescadero : : San Jose Del Cabo

in Mexico we arrange our days into halves sliced by fierce lethargy. at its apex, the sun kindles unseen bonfires and drags them afire upon its decent.

This desert is unfamiliar, its colors flat and brown; the dryness is absolute but defied by trees, who, at their branch tips, are anointed by blossoms jewel red and yellow. but this strange anthem of life streaks the saguaro wastes only at slow speeds (color booming across a perpetuity of duns and grays only if one's purpose has stalled or mellowed.)

in stately columns, light pours over arroyos and tightly gathered mountains. like chimes, these spectral pillars ring and pound the dry ground. its unheard resonance is evident in the abrupt gathering and swoop of frigate birds who tremble as they tip in and out of sight. 

 

the sea is a shock. the earth seems lie down drum tight with dryness and impenetrable hardness and then is lapped by a sea so fiercely blue, so gentle and demure it shocks even the gulls, who do not patrol and pan the shallows, but stand resolute in recovery from the spectacle along the dunes.

On the blades of cold

Deep cold, narrow days. Frost alive on all the trees as the mercury fails and shudders at the bottom of the thermometer. -9, -11, -12. The cold is alive and dynamic instead of passive and heavy. Going out and all the skin on your face lays tight and your eyes smart. How articulated all the planes feel as the cold primes and hums across them. And we? Head out into it. When we can tolerate (some of us better than others!)

We will sometimes bundle and arm ourselves and head into the trembling light. Getting to the top is no colder than being down low, only leaner and fiercer.

Sometimes this relentless cold and dark time makes me feel smothered. I am lucky to have been guided by serendipity to the deep thinking and light-oriented writings of May Sarton. From her 1973 Journal of a Solitude, she wonders about the nature of this closing-up as well...

     "I think of the trees and how simply they let go, let all the riches of a season, how without grief (it  seems) they can let go and go deep into their roots for renewal and sleep.....Does anything in nature despair except man? An animal caught in a trap does not seem to despair. It is too busy trying to survive. It is all closed in, to a kind of still, intense waiting. Is this a key? Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let is go."

                         -October 6th entry.

Such a mimicry, we could be so honored to get it even close to right. Those trees.

cake and pan toggles

to be sure, the Deadline is approaching! i am of the opinion that is has winged feet, or other means to so speedily chew through what i thought was quite a bit of time.

but it seems, as with most deadlines for me, that i do the best work at the end. maybe it is rush or maybe it is a need for closure (although i am wonderful at teasing anxiety out into finite tentacles and to savor each one in a sleepless night that wrecks me.) but whatever it is, they usual strange means of doing something Meaningful are upon me: no appetite, hipbones sharp like ploughs, watery sleep (although the moon last night is to blame, really), and manic scribbling of all kinds.

secretly i live for this hysteria, i think that's part of why RISD was so good for me, it said "forgo everything in  favor of this one small effort." and so I did. we all did, really.

and as I was hunting around for ways to bolster courage of any kind, this beacon blinked on and whirred

it is The Chromatic Typewriter(!)

And it paints- and...draws...and writes i imagine. it was submitted for the 2012 west prize competition and of course, as that's not yet happened, it doesn't seem necessary to use it as a means of justifying how brilliant the whole concept is.

So, a machine- a complicated one, heavy, cumbersome, maker of delicious sound and provider of crooked letters, broken ribbons, stuck keys and frustration. But this one with paints! And with keys mapped just so (pressing shift presumably allows the typer to toggle between colors.) there is no more tangible combination of word and image. this man paints loosely as is, but the typewriter imparts a kind of control that is otherwise inaccessible to an abstract process.

so it is a metaphor, for the ever-present issues of not looking but seeing. and at just the right time.

article 3 number 2

: :

Each man and his wet fist curl fiercely around

groves of standing candles.

(they are strangers.)

Each a stranded vessel

on the white throat

of flat water

among the traveling trees.

Some seas will still themselves in this way from time to time

and the thickening water, now mostly murderous mineral, will

flense the flesh of swimming things from their skeletons.

Thirst makes amnesiacs of everything, teeth drop out.

Each man's luminous chest,

in swimming postures of restless sleep,

will sometimes share

the other's dreams.

Of drowning in the glove darkness

of silt and decay just below trailing fingertips,

or of clear water breaking through skin

and, in reflection, blinding them.

Each will sway sometimes from his watch.

Roused by a hiss of singed flesh

or the bluely darkening bloom

of a clandestine bruise

he will look down to see,

striped in ash,

that in sleep he's put out the other's flames

with his own panicked breath.

the lowest (so far) lows

today the lowest low so far! 2 degrees at sunrise and the air is like a blade. this kind of blue in  the sky is almost of an hysterical saturation, a fist rubbing of maniac color that's impossible to escape. so of course, we go out, with all of our mouths open to catch it, wind burn chafing our lips, space shattering as dogs leap through it. not even winter yet, not hardly.

article 3

each man and his wet fist

together

curl themselves fiercely around their

grove of standing candles.

these, yes, do all the ordinary things;

flicker and bow and shine through

the slats of their ribs,

cause conflagrations of

rage and sadness

to shock down their arms

and shake between their teeth.

but

tides and salt rot are thinning

the bottoms of the barges,

and the tentpoles of tree limbs,

and are forming dry standing earth

in the middle of the sea.

even in sleep united,

each man's luminous chest,

in swimming postures of restlessness

will sometimes share

the other's dreams.

of drowning in the glove darkness

of silt and decay just below trailing fingertips,

or of clear water breaking

through collapsing skin

and blinding them

in reflection.

each man, a stranded vessel

on the white throat

of flat water

among the traveling trees,

will sway sometimes from his watch.

a hiss of singed flesh

or the bluely darkening bloom

of a clandestine bruise and

he will look down to see,

striped in ash,

that in sleep he's put out his own flames

with panicked breath.

feeding morale

pride is recovering (but was not wounded by some golden people as they had thought)

it is important to return to the original square and to plod on with things one knows will cheers them up. for example, the whisking of hippy dippy oats and grains and seeds and nuts and chocolate and baking them in a bath of butter until shatteringly crisp. see also the life sustaining gramnola bar

also, when confronted with strange blustery snow and plummety lows such as 3 or -2 degrees it is also good to up the intake of stodgy, starchy, warming foods. like a bowl of 'little ear's tossed with chopped olives, fresh rosemary, parsley, lemon zest, lemon juice, olive oil, chili flakes and hard cheese. see also, lunch time!

obviously it's clear: the ratio of snacks is directly proportionate to morale. this is a happy and full lady who just happens to have found some sort of time for Productivity today! see below.

cheers.

article 2.

at the wrong time,

loose with skin and skeleton,

the sky buckles

for me.

sprent with pinpoints of light,

I am dimly aware

the night sentinels,

in an attitude of delirium,

assemble.

this is the milky way.

it comes shrieking along,

too blunt and broad.

a plague of feeble light

wrecking itself demurely

across the sky

when I am much too old

to be blown by it.

night hounds cover the earth,

a howl of ballast weight

keeping our little fury

of breath and tide anchored.

you know it is the dog star

because it slices around,

refuses to define itself,

jabs scintillas of light

behind your eye

none of these

heavenly bodies

are the atlases they are said to be.

for me,

swathed to the throat

in panic and down

the asphalt comes up

in blows,

salt rasps my cheeks.

I hear my own cracking descent onto the road

unnavigable, brittle,

fiercely bloodwarm

while the dark,

in hysterics,

razes hugely on

gaspless and determined.

adrift and unmoored.

things are slightly askew currently. some mouthfuls of feedback were too vague and too brittle and too loaded with the baggage of someone else. it is like sustaining little secret bruises who refuse to bloom and bluely darken.

we are all in a rut of sorts.

this man, without regards for self preservation, crossed the snowfields in a delirium and cleanly razed a paring from his leg. it was a clean cut (a barbed fence? a smooth stick? a rock blade?) and i kept imagining, somewhere marooned, was a gleaming shaving of his back leg, bearded with fur and pooled in a slick of pinky plasma. then, shaking myself, Teamwork was done to haul him to the vet who said stitches were unnecessary, and so, like a stretched mouth, the wound has left little rosebud stamps of gore across the carpet.

i am licking my own invisible wounds, not pride shocked with a rash of gravel, but the wound to my compass which, i could have sworn, has pointed me due North very steadily. it is a shock to feel, after one's work is evaluated, that one has been completely out of touch with the reality of the situation. 

notebooks abound. pencil shavings, coffee cups crowded with the white mold left over from the morning's cream. my whole brain feels like a crowded journal, dog-eared, gorged with to-do lists, reminders, calendars and outlines.

we are not often faced with the dilemma: "if you work hard you may not succeed." those of us with hysterical work ethics and lofty self-expectations are usually the most crushed by this. i am nearly flattened. but nevertheless keeping heads up and trying to glean what little seedy leftovers can be poured into apron pockets once the scythes have leveled the ripe field.

article 1:

 : :

due to an outstanding balance,

the electric company was teasing

the painter's house off

the grid.

it seemed to him very gradual.

not as he had begun to brace

himself for, all at once,

but room by room, and only a night.

he noticed one evening

as he ate,

a weakening of edges as dusk fell.

outside his neighbor's windows

tipped bands of light

across the walks.

shadow teemed and poured.

rinds of orange light

brightened along the

edges of everything.

he found he was bending

very close to his newspaper

in order to read,

and looked up to see the lumens

sigh out of the fixture.

methodically, he changed

and re-changed the bulb,

shook it close to his ear to

listen for the sandy sigh of

a broken filament

he took his meals at the

long table in the dining room

after that.

then, off his lap in the

strobey wash of his television.

--

gradually the painter became

enamored with weak light.

he favored this kind of

second rate, pawned

luminescence in his practice.

as subject,

as protagonist.

he would stop to bow his head

beneath long fluorescent

lamps and let

the buzz of them bang,

numbly around in his head.

--

by now and by luck

the attic was the only place

where the light would come

on

he had clumsily bumped his great

drafting table up there

from the studio

and left a halo of cracks

spreading over the doorjamb.

from there, most days now,

shrieks and grindings

let themselves in from a stuck window

a lamp post was being erected by

men with luminous vests

this reflection would go spangling across

the attic much

to the delight of the painter

he tilted in his stool, looked around

--

lately he would sheets of paper on the table

to watch rogue light from

the poorly hung aluminum blinds

cross it and then exit

it had been quite some time since

he had made marks,

now he left his palms marooned

on his knees and stilled

himself

as time and light and the painter

swelled and then emptied from the room.

--

on the last lit night the painter

dabbed a kerosene lighter at

the tip of a cigarette.

in a hiss, the little petal of flame

drooped and went out, spent.

the painter let it aside,

put his cheek on the paper spread over the table.

his stillness was total.

above him, the drafting lamp

shuddered, snapped and failed.

--

the painter blinked

through his glasses

at the single slat in the blinds that

hung askew.

from it, a wide powdery wedge

of warm light came

from the lamp post

and in the silence, for the vests

and sawblades had at last ceased,

a beam of light shot

through with gold

caught the wide lenses of

the painter's glasses and

poured across the room

in shocking brilliance.