So as it’s not looking like a refreshingly cathartic trip up the desert is in the offing anytime soon
we content ourselves with the occasional screen-mediated visit with Vancouver, B.C. where
people with central heating wonder why grandparents are so bundled up in their homes and
it seems that a quarantine trampoline had been set up in the backyard in a survivalist gesture at least as meaningful as the kitchen garden while here in Benicia we continue to loop
around the blocks clockwise and counter-, Sumi and Cosmos intersecting at the water on
alternating rotations prior to Aggie, then breakfast. Afternoons, the dizziness having abated, I
returned to gently cycling. In other news the studio “office” was isolated from the drawing area, necessitating belated stabilization of the rusting table plucked from a Haight Ashbury sidewalk over thirty years ago and now, after considerable scraping and two applications of patina preserver for the protection of the laptops, reincarnated as Desk [right].
Some evenings there are already barbecues, though dinners remain within
and some days appear breezily sunny with low tide stench in the afternoons
A curious dog-moment occurred when Linda, in response to a request from Ariel and Cara [from whom came the puppies – L’s portraits below] for news, asked for images of their siblings
in return over which S&C went spontaneously wild with enthusiasm when we [not they] viewed them. “They understand us way more than we do them”…
Days have been much too busy scraping images off my laptop from as far away back as May,
2018 [hedgehog from Hampstead Heath that October, Caprese from Aquastanca, Murano, Italy September 28th 2018…glasses bought the same day…not likely we’ll pass those ways again
soon]* to make much work this week, not that much work needed to be made.
In an as yet chill Spring we are enjoying some days just warm enough for
lunches out
or, during the not infrequent days of rain, taken inside…
Drawing materials and paint arrived, the lack of stretcher bars unexplained but fortunately some came encased in cardboard suitable for priming which is all just the normal, not even
the new in terms of how our days [save the ongoing unease, of course – the herd seems to have overtaken Boris Johnson, for instance – and more to follow, sadly] unfold; wake up, feed and oil canines, check email, walk dogs clockwise and counter-, walk Aggie, breakfast…scrape photos off laptop and prime cardboard [a lengthy meditative process that will continue for at least a week]…read, make strange little drawings…lunch, repeat, bike to the water around three, back to read, review work, meditate…dinner. A gentle schedule, hoping to stay healthy for the sake of the dogs and each other. Other businesses scuffle to adjust, but here in California they remain ever agile; auras delivered curbside? Palm reading by smartphone? We can help.
Youth wants to know…when…and whaaat?
*2018 looked in retrospect quite a year; Lefty died in June, we reached the Huerfano just in time for the full force of the Spring Fire in July, crisscrossed the smoky west in August moving art, installed and opened Linda’s “Confluence” at UCCS in September, then London and Venice...a wet Christmas at Wall Spring, Libre and snow at year’s end.
Thanks for the update, Bro. Good to hear you and L are successfully sheltering with the “youth”. We all want to know how & when life will return for them (and us). It may not return to normal (and that may be better for our questionable future). Post-COVID there’ll be bigger challenges looming globally, socially, politically and economically as things cascade.
You’re inspiring me to get more things done on a daily basis since we’ve been a bit shell-shocked here for the last few weeks (escaping beside the fireplace to binge movies). Your desk scraping (and image scraping), not to mention cardboard priming, are impressively productive. And reading of your 2018 activities makes me want to ask… do you guys ever just relax?
The point I was making was we’re just doing what we usually do, sans social life…little bits of this, little bits of that…for me bingeing on Don DeLillo’s “Libra” is probably akin to your bingeing on Netflix…it’s all a little surreal; the TV and the internet tell of storms raging but here all is calm. Until…well, who knows?
I agree, you are far too productive! I thought I might take on a project or two but so far just seem to be working and eating….with the emphasis on the eating….oh dear…
I am productive in the way you are but without dogs. I miss swimming, but otherwise life is pretty much the same. I really liked the table top. I’d think of printing the dog portraits, so regal!!