I always can create something from nothing better than anyone else. That’s what Joan used to say, and that’s certainly is me. Whole cloth from straw. But I must honestly tell you, I don’t know where the whole cloth comes from. Nor do I know what to do with it when I have it.
I asked one of the wonderful poets who comes to the “Old Grey Poets Society” lunches what I should do with these little essays I write. She said she didn’t know, but to hang on to them. Gather my straw unto me….and that’s what I shall do. Bail my words up into something. On a shelf perhaps. Run-on thinking let wild.
The truth is that it’s hard to change mediums. I’ve been a painter in one guise or another since age four when I discovered I could make a kite look like a kite…at least the kite in my imagination. I passionately loved color and could make whole cloth out of anything as long as I could make it colorful. Now here I am without a unique vision either in black and white or color, but I’m still plodding on.
There was a time when I had too many mediums. Not only did I paint, I played with clay, made jewelry, sewed, wove….did I ever mention that I had two looms, one was Duck’s, and I also made my spare change out of line drawing. When I finally graduated from my eternal seniorness at SDSU, I knew I loved learning. I also discovered I had too many mediums to be able to do them all any more.
Interests gone wild was me. So I gave the looms away, I gave the paints to Lenora, I gave everything but the pastilles and the colored pencils away….for my stroke damaged brain got tired of relearning techniques. But I kept on learning. I found I loved words as much as I loved architectural history. I found I loved pushing the other’s imaginations via the printed word as much as I loved pushing color on canvas. I spent two years learning to use the computer while I wrote my first, not very good book. Only when handed my first digital camera, did all my worlds collide and become whole cloth again. Today I have burlap….lovely stuff that. Tomorrow I may discover silk tucked into the corners.
The nice thing about all this continued growing is that there’s always more whole cloth left to put together and shelve for the later.
Me: Lunch with poets yesterday. Shuffled DVD’s and books at the library afterwards. Dinner by the bay. Lazy today. Toothache after dinner last night and lunch today. Dentist’s day off….but xrays show no problem. Speaking of nothing.
G: Doing better. He’s still wearing leather jackets to work and sitting under a vent. Cell phone calls not allowed now. I discovered this when I called and got a very disapproving sounding G. For a brief time, online wasn’t allowed but it’s an online company. That didn’t work. Will they ban email next?
Duck: His roommate was asleep, so we took him out to the main front room and chatted with him for a while. I need to learn new conversational gambits, for asking questions of someone who has no memory doesn’t make it. “Did you have a good day,” for instance, elicits, “I don’t remember but I guess I did.” There’s always the inventive, "How is your dog?" He then can let his imagination play. “My dog knows what I did. My dog’s laughing." And he waves his arm as if it were a paw.
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