I was clean tho.
One caring friend would let me sleep in her tub. I stayed up sometimes for seven days in a row. Sometimes I partied every day all day driving from club to club finally putting myself to sleep with another hand full of speed. The drugs were winning. I believed glass was coming out of every pore. Lack of sleep will do that to you; it did to me. Every chance I had I would move into my friend’s tub from my two-seater sports car.
I wasn’t a nice bather. I’d pick at myself, doze until the water froze, drain it, and add hot water, and repeat.
She threw me out. I deserved it.
Our beach house had two tubs….one of which was a darkroom. The Garrison House and the Front and Fir houses had showers. Oh misery. The studio had a tub, but I had put plywood on top to give Lessa a place of privacy in the chaos of my world. We weren’t there long. The one bedroom apartment had a tub, but frankly I don’t remember it. We weren’t there long either before we moved to the Purple Palace one block from the beach. It had a nice but short, claw foot tub as did the Lotus street cottage.
Perhaps I remember my life tub to tub.
The water lessened the effects of the street drugs I was consuming that kept me awake days at a time, it mellowed out the hangovers, and unbeknownst to me, it washed away my allergies…temporarily.
Here in OB, my blue cardboard sketchbook journals turned into 8x10 black bound acid free sketchbooks. They were very expensive for someone like me. I was always afraid that I couldn’t afford the next one, but I always found the money somewhere. The books felt good under my hands. I loved the time I spent writing in them….early in the morning till ten. Late at night too, on the edge of the bathtubs.
Odd, but I have never read about someone's life through their experience with various bathtubs...!
ReplyDeleteWhy not. You have to laugh at yourself to survive. I can still remember the day the base player almost fell into the beach house tub. LOL
ReplyDeletewow. your lines and drawings are so light, free, simple, clear. Fascinating to read what you were going through when you made those dwgs. They (dwgs) and you have made it through--quite well! kudos!
ReplyDelete