Brain Fog Solution

May Day 2021 thoughts. (photo from Fall 2020)

I have not written or post on here since January 2020. What I thought 2020 would be, my hopes and dreams, like everyone else on the planet, we postponed. I sit here at a precipice of change in my life. Trying to figure out where I want to go, how to not limit what I do based on the physical energy I have, and what do I want my life to look like in 5 years. I don’t know. I don’t like uncertainty. The foreboding about the future is mixed in with hope. My self-esteem and joy have been wrapped up in doing things with people and creating events and art that brings people together. The pandemic has knocked me completely down. I have spent over a year treading water and not flourishing, mentally, physically, financially, and creatively. It is May 1st 2021 and I still have not found my bearings. Looming uncertainty about my home has paralyzed me. Looming uncertainty about some of my employment has crippled me. Looming uncertainty about gathering people together has killed my drive. So much empty time has made me empty. I am not one of those artists who found more time equals more art-making, because a giant part of my art is constructing ways for people to gather. I flourish in the exchange of ideas and thoughts in the presence of people. I withered during this time. I don’t know what I want to do with this acknowledgement. But I think it is a beginning to come to a personal reckoning. The world at large needs to also reckon with itself. That is another post.

Sketchbook: Goals and Thoughts

For the many years I utilize the New Year to think about goals. Not in the sense of resolutions, but some loose guidelines for the the year and reminders on the things I forget to remember: #1 is taking care of myself; #2 is developing my own art (the part of life I usually have the most trouble doing for myself); #3 is setting some long term goals through thinking about visions and ideas.

For the young who want to

BY MARGE PIERCY

Talent is what they say

you have after the novel

is published and favorably

reviewed. Beforehand what

you have is a tedious

delusion, a hobby like knitting.

Work is what you have done

after the play is produced

and the audience claps.

Before that friends keep asking

when you are planning to go

out and get a job.

Genius is what they know you

had after the third volume

of remarkable poems. Earlier

they accuse you of withdrawing,

ask why you don’t have a baby,

call you a bum.

The reason people want M.F.A.’s,

take workshops with fancy names

when all you can really

learn is a few techniques,

typing instructions and some-

body else’s mannerisms

is that every artist lacks

a license to hang on the wall

like your optician, your vet

proving you may be a clumsy sadist

whose fillings fall into the stew

but you’re certified a dentist.

The real writer is one

who really writes. Talent

is an invention like phlogiston

after the fact of fire.

Work is its own cure. You have to

like it better than being loved.

The terrorist face of America is white supremacy.

As Trump recently calls Antifa “terrorists,” two white supremacist terrorist mass shootings happen.

Fathers Day… Thoughts…

I am happy that I know some great fathers out there who are wonderful men and amazing parents. Sending you love on a day that is bittersweet for me (the sweet part is because I know some of you). Thanks for being dads and grandfathers who show love to your families. Happy Fathers day to you. I have always been curious about people who had dads who were nice decent guys, and either they adored their dads, or at least knew they were loved by them and had some respect for them. Fathers Day is not my favorite commemoration because I had a crappy abusive drunk father (who never lived long enough to ask my forgiveness in his old age). I feared that moment, but he has been gone for 20 years or so. I am not a cold person, but when he died, I was relieved and felt released from my fears of him asking me to take care of him when he was old (or him asking a sibling who might actually say “yes”).

These are the only 2 photos that I like of my father: Photo 1) Is of me at 4 or 5 (with that 70s shirt and bangs), our dog, my cousin Jan in the background, and my father at my grandmother’s house before I was aware of, or experienced his abuse. Photo 2) Is of him, when he was young, before I ever knew him, with my cousins Jeff and Bobby (side note: throughout my childhood, I remember Jeff and my father having fist fights screaming at each other when one, or the other, or both were extremely inebriated).

I was always embarrassed by my father, especially when I was a teenager: he was a true binge alcoholic and spent time in jail for DUIs; he occasionally conned people (sometimes with my cousin Jeff—who eventually ended up in jail); and he used people for money for his business (which I was very conscious of because I had to see some of the people he used). I think he also felt entitled to fleece my grandmother, and take the money I had been stuffing away for college from my jobs at the nearby Taco Bell, washing/detailing cars, cleaning houses, and babysitting. My mother always warned me to hide the bank statements. I helped my mother leave him right before I left to come to Chicago. Eventually, he also took money from my single-mom-sister who was struggling to make it. I stopped talking to my father when I was 18 and never regretted it once. Not all my siblings feel exactly like me, and we each had our own versions of our father.

At this time in my life, as I approach the age when my father died, I realize that I have (very long ago) let go my anger toward him and the hurts I felt, but I will never forget them. I have long seen him as a very flawed person who was never happy, was manipulative of others, and was cruel to his family and terrorized us—especially my mother. I think he got away with all the manipulations of others and cruelty for so long because he had the ability to also be magnetic—a true narcissist. In contrast to him, I have been happy despite heartbreaks, losses, and everyday stresses of life. I have tried to fight the good fights, and live a life of service with other human beings towards liberation in a variety of ways. People I’ve met in those struggles for freedom have brought me the most joy in life. I have tried to enjoy the beauty of people despite living in a world that is very cruel to too many of them. I cannot say that my father has had no effect on my choices in life because we cannot change where we have been. Despite my father, I am ok. At least, I know where I don’t want to go.