Sometimes I long go back to the house I grew up in, and that my mom died in. I got chills walking past her room after her death, yet I often experienced a uncanny peace of mind when I stopped to linger in it; opening up drawers to see that her clothes were still folded up neatly, idly sniffing her perfume and rummaging through her makeup. She had a million different shades of mauve lipstick, all worn down to the nub. It was impossible for me to differentiate between them. It didn't matter really; they all looked horrid on me.
I will never step foot in my nana's house again either. When grandfather While built it in the 1930s the roads on the hill surrounding the property were still unpaved, red dirt. When my mom was growing up one of the neighbors even kept a old horse. I can just picture it placidly chewing it's cud, and wearily whisking away flies and curious children with its tail.
The crowning jewel of the house were the windows. A view of San Francisco unlike any I have seen before or since. My mom once told me that the first time she took acid, she had a vision of a Chinese dragon wrapping it's tail, serpentine like, around the city To hear her tell it, it was a unpleasant but formative experience. Her older sister gave it to her. My mother was fourteen. A child of sixties San Francisco who was initiated into the world of adulthood a bit too soon. It can really be too too much sometimes. I know it well.
When you think about it, hastening maturity, is many ways paramount to the smooth functioning of modern society. Fruit is routinely picked before it is ready, and farm animals are fed hormones that make their extremities grow to monstrous proportions. Meanwhile, we, as human beings are constantly striving to intensify the experience of life and speed it up... drinking cup after cup of coffee in the morning to in order to jerk awake, washing down a beer in the evening to unwind. Perhaps some are dimly aware of the the fact that waiting for nature to ripen her bounty in her own time is more fruitful in the end. Too often however, this is forgotten as the pressure to constantly move forward overwhelms us. We are afraid of being left behind the fray.
The immutable fact of the matter was that my mom was dead. . It was simple, really. The same old story, the cold hard truth, and what have you. Nothing to see here folks, move along. You've all heard it before and won't like hearing it again.
Caught halfway between embitterment and humiliation is an uncomfortable to be place. It was in a word, stifling. I deluded myself that after years of repression, that it would all just flow out of me naturally. In a way, I thought building pressure would help the process. My feelings would come soaring out of me like rockets into the air and neatly hit their targets. The reality was much different. The ideas and beliefs that I had told myself were gestating inside of me were in actuality, festering. Moreover, the atrophy was spreading outward. Self loathing isn't for the faint of heart, but at least it is contained, circumscribed by the individual. Real despair is hating the whole world over. It is awful. I sunk very low. I won't describe it because the only way to understand is experience it. I wouldn't wish it on anyone else though.
Think of knobby, gnarled hands that have been balled up into fists for years and you will have a picture of my state of mind at thar time. Unfurling them requires patience and dedication, a loving and gentle touch. Indeed, as I was soon to learn, forcibly prying them open will only make matters worse.
I have been friends with her since I was six, and we even lived next door for a number of years. We spent our childhoods together, traipsing around the city streets and getting into mischief. Here is my cherished Maud Story: One time when was 8 or so she bought a chocolate home run pie at a corner store that she deemed to have an insufficient amount of icing on it. She went back to the cashier and asked for her 50 cents back.
But I digress. When I think of Maud, I think of her hands. Dexterous, strong, gentle, kneading dough, crafting, gesticulating. When she wants to heighten in tension a story she telling, she often makes a little fluttering motion as if she were reeling in a fish. This is her way of pulling us into her world, I think.
I own a book from the 70s called, "The Soothsayers Handbook-A Guide to Bad Signs and Good Vibrations." The chapterson ESP is just what you expect; ridiculous. Palmistry, on the other hand, seems to hold a bit more weight. Maud completely fits with the 'artistic hand' type: "Conic hands that have fingers that are full at the base and taper towards the ends." "Full at the base" is important, as it implies a sturdiness of character. In my experience, the stereotypical conception of artists as flighty, whimsical, and unstable is completely fallacious. Actually, perhaps it is consistent with 'artist' in the modern sense. I have known my share of flakey 'conceptual' artists who will rise occasionally rise out of whatever stupor they have sunk into, take a picture of their knees and put a frame around it. Maud is an entirely different animal, however. She is an artist in truest sense of the word; a craftswoman.
Crafting is looked down upon in the current egocentric, male dominated art world. This wasn't always the case. Being a 'real' artist these days isn't about technical skill though. Rather, you know you have achieved success when you have established your own little factory, ensuring that you will never have to touch your own art again. That way the aforementioned conceptual artists can stay seated on the couch watching TV without interruption. Someone else can take a picture of another person's knees and frame it. I scoff at these so called artists because Maud has more talent has in her little finger than all of them and their minions combined. For her, art was never about proving herself. She has nothing to prove. She is the real deal, after all. She enjoys the process of making, and delights in generously sharing her gifts with others.
Here is a diary she made me when I was going through a hard time. She left it unfinished because she wanted "it to become battered some day like your heart." If your first thought was that this was overly sentimental of her, that just shows that your own heart hasn't been worn down yet. Judgment is still encasing it, but never mind that... revel in your naivete while you can, and look at that attention to detail! It really makes me realize the extent to which we have lost our way in this crazy world of ours. Art that heals, and thereby has purpose, is not about expansive ideas that break down old paradigms. That is not enjoyable, nor is it honest as it puts an impossible amount pressure on the artist to be original. Silly, don't they know that art is inherently repetitious? It is all about obsessive ritual and habits. Knitting, stippling, carving, dancing require a person to make the same motions over and over. It is a way of coping with and recognizing the pain that ebbs and flows. It is not the manifesto that claims to have found the solution to human suffering. In fact, the best apt analogy would perhaps be the a collection of diary entries where the same fears, self doubts, and ideas are articulated, and returned to again and again. The diary keeper's inability to completely change these behaviors and erradicate pain does not indicate he or she's failure. Indeed, if anything, they should be cultivated, for within them lies the key to unlocking one's full potential as a human being; expression.
"A fishy tear ran down his cheek." God, that gets me every time. So does this song she wrote and sings:
Good Clean Feeling
Oh how I wish I could convey the difficulties in my life so sweetly. Of course, I don't think I am strong enough to overcome quite like she does. I don't have that 'sturdy base' in myself yet.
Slowly, however, her love is wearing away my resistance, opening up my hands
Freeing them up to receive that ephemeral, fleeting quality in myself that in my darkest moments I think I have lost forever: Innocence.
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