I donāt really go stir crazy. I mean, there are times Iād like to do something. This or that. But even when I was healthy and could walk a lot, stay upright, what did I really do?
Iād walk along trails and shores and down the street. Iād walk to the library and sit at the library, or at a cafe. Now and then Iād go to a movie at the film archive, sit for a while once I walked there. Iād browse bookstores. Iād go to church, whether for mass or just to sit there, in a pew, surrounded by stained glass windows or stone. Just be in quiet.
Now and then, on rare occasion, Iād go to a concert. Iāve never been a big concert goer or live music person, for someone who loves music. Iād only go if I couldnāt miss it. Nine Inch Nails, Beach House. I think thatās all I went to the entire 5 years.
a seat at the symphony, now and then, if something good was on the schedule. Something heavy and loud and boisterous and thunderous. Usually no strings. Pianos. Pounding keys. If there were strings, then rising to crescendo, as the piano was pounded and the symphony orchestra was all reaching to a terrifying and heightening and anxious climax that would eventually release.
Applause. Smile. Big dumb smile.
like sex. mounting. pressure. release. or a panic attack, for an imagined or a real scenario that scared you, that ends well and you can breathe again. so, like sex. at least the kind I liked.
Then walk to Wendyās after, or before. Take the long way through the public garden, or Boston Common. sit on a bus or a metro, stare into space.
sit on my bed, or in my chaise lounge chair. lounge in my lounge chair.
eat some granola, eat some leftovers. maybe order something. paint a wooden bird house. water my plant. I think he was a ā¦ uhā¦ā¦.. basil. Yes, basil.
make some chamomile, sit there. journal. make a list.
now and then step out again, into the night. walk and walk, walk to Porter. browse Porter Square Books and not buy anything. I guess I just found it calming in there. little crafts and wares and books and I think used books too. paper stationary, cards made by local artists.
look into the window of the toy store that was already closed, because it was late. all there was was stuffed animals. wall to wall. pigs and unicorns and things like that. soft. nice neutral or pastel colors, like for a baby or child and a parent allergic to garish colors and lights and sounds and toys that made noise. and me. I always wanted one. but I thought it would be silly, going in there and getting a plush pig for myself. so I just looked through the window. it was always closed anyway.
I guess thatās all I did. what else did I really do?
now and then, I guess, Iād go to a museum.
there were so many, all in walking distance or on the T.
sometimes my ex and I would meet after work. thereād be a special night for members, with wine and cheese. I wasnāt a member. he was. I was the free ticket, the āplus one.ā weād sit there and go back and forth, getting up and down, because the paper plates were tiny and you couldnāt fit much.
some were by famous artists. your Rothkos and things like that. famous multimedia artists, installations from NYC.
I didnāt like all of it. none of the Rococo and the luxury tea sets and gaudy furniture from the colonial times or whatever.
I liked some of the religious art. always dramatic. someone always bleeding or being pierced or dying or weeping or faces contorted in pain and sorrow. I didnāt like it to like it, it just seemed familiar somehow. almost like home. but I grew up Catholic. not the prosperity gospel or āGod wants you to be rich,ā but āweāre poor because God wants us to be poor.ā thatās what my grandma used to say.
āwe come into this world poor and we die poor,ā my uncle, her son, used to say. they both lived and died poor. but my grandma died slightly more rich than she did when she was born, but she was also born in a tent with a dirt floor in a migrant camp, the only girl to survive.
I think my uncle died more or less horizontal. everyone does, I think. laying down. but I mean financially. never up or down. just stayed the same.
but I also liked photo exhibits.
Iāll never forget this one, somewhere I think at a museum on Stanfordās campus. a friend and I went, a hop over from the Berkeley campus.
it was photos mounted on the wall, with a wired pair of black headphones underneath. youād listen and hear the voice of the subject of the photo. telling some story, being interviewed about something. like a documentary with voice over but while looking at one still photograph. then another, then another.
I thought it was the coolest thing ever. even better than the experimental multimedia pieces and weird documentary installations at the Musuem of Modern Art. simple, creative. I always wanted to do something like that. I was in audio, after all. since I was 19. but I never really took portraits or photos.
I just wasnāt a photo person. I just liked looking at them.
we donāt have too many museums around here. we have some art events, like this thing called Art Hop. once a month I think. gallery crawls, open studios. cafes and restaurant and third spaces of various kinds, suddenly turned into spare gallery space for local artists.
artists who make weird art with graphite and coal, fiber artists who make sculptures out of felt and wool and yarn and crochet. printmaking. ceramics. lots and lots of photographers.
I went often in high school.
but you donāt hop, and you donāt crawl. you walk, from gallery to gallery, studio to studio. cafe to old movie theater, empty warehouse.
a photographer friend of mine invited me not too long ago. he doesnāt know much. I donāt tell anyone, really, the details. I drop hints, but donāt typically say what happened. why they donāt see me around anymore, even on social media. Iād answer if asked, but Iām never asked. just sort of evade, evasive, never quite broach the subject.
my friend is an art photographer, and a documentary photographer, and a printmaker, an experimental multimedia artist, and a photography professor now.
he invited me to the woods. the redwoods. I politely declined.
he invited me to Art Hop. he was in town for spring break a while back ago.
I politely declined. I really wanted to go. to see him, and to see the art. but I knew I couldnāt walk that much, I knew I just couldnāt do it.
but Iāve been thinking a lot of the local art museum.
itās a lot of Mesoamerican art, fiber art. photography. local painters. no one famous or fancy, just good enough to be in a museum, I guess. my friend, the photographer, took me there once, several years ago. I had never been there.
it was perfect. not too big, not too small. all one level. lots of styles, lots of colors. none of the classical stuff, the perfectly photorealistic fruit in a bowl or the placid Virgin nursing a baby Jesus who apparently never cried.
weird scribbles, color blocking. adobe and orange and black ceramic. tapestries. prints, like the documentary still frames I liked, but no sound. and sometimes my friendās work. even the gift shop sells his stuff. prints.
thereās white walls and low ceilings and itās quiet in there. not too many visitors. thereās one big room with a bench. I remember sitting there, years ago, needing to take a seat. I watched him get real close to some paintings, and taking photos of them with his film camera. squinting, snapping.
I was content to just watch. watch him.
we once almost had a thing, but it was too weird. he was my friend. too much my friend to be a friend with benefits. my type, and handsome, with scraggly hair to his shoulders and a funky aesthetic that was all his. lanky and tall and all legs, skinny legs. kind eyes behind glasses. and kind. extremely, endlessly, genuinely, heartwarming, disarmingly kind. the kind that makes you think ā thereās still good people out there. nothing detached or ironic or sarcastic or too cool. just genuinely passionate, intense, a true believer, a simple person, a brilliant person, but a kind and generous goofball that listened to you like you were amazing, fascinating. āwow. you are just incredible.ā and he meant it.
I thought, wow. someone like that, saying something like that, about someone like me.
anyway. I think we kissed, and I said ā no, no no I canāt. I felt bad because he really wanted to, and a few hours earlier had made me a buttery and rich grilled cheese on sourdough on a wooden stove, decadent sharp creamy cheddar and served on a log. ālunch on a log,ā as I reclined on a couch, next to an āend tableā made of white pine he had cut down and I guess thought āthis would work as an end table.ā but I imagined it. God, I imagined it. I could picture it. I saw it all flash before my eyes in my mind, the moment he grabbed my waist and kissed me. āwe could go upstairs.ā we couldā¦ no, no no, no, I thought. I want to, but no. not the kind of friend Iād risk with making things weird. too good of a friend.
I think it was Christmas, but I donāt remember. I donāt remember why we spent Christmas together. I think maybe because it was snowing up there, in the foothills. and he thought some change of scenery and a white Christmas would be good. I remember the book he gave me, the photo book. for Christmas. still have it.
ILF AND PETROVāS AMERICAN ROAD TRIP
two Soviet photographers in the US, road tripping, taking photos of what they saw.
I said no. no thank you. Iād love to, the woods, the Art Hop, but ā¦ I canāt.
he didnāt push it. āmaybe next time.ā
but I keep thinking of the art museum. how peaceful it is. and colorful.
but the walking, the staying upright.
well, I thought. let me see whatās there. whatās on exhibit. just to see. maybe they have photo galleries. photo galleries of the art galleries at the museum.
oh. closed? they closed it down??
oh. no. closed til August, just for some maintenance. oh, ok. phew. even if I never go again, I wouldnāt want it to be closed.
āā¦ wheelchair rental at front desk. call to reserve.ā
rental? whoa! Iāve never heard that before. but I never really needed one before, either. I donāt have one. but Iād need one. I donāt have a way to get one. it would be a whole process, and I donāt really go anywhere anyway.
not sure a wheelchair would even fit in my momās two-door, compact car.
Iād just need to get there. pay the entry fee.
I could really go, I could go to the museum, and not just imagine it. I really could go. maybe in August. itās not just hypothetical, a thought experiment, an imagine. a plan?
itās manual, but I can do that. or someone could push me.
like my grandmaās, that I used to roll around in.
āhow does this thing work?ā
Iād laugh, soinning in circles on the linoleum floor of her room in the nursing home, taking it for a spin down the carpeted hall and back.
then it was time to leave. and weād wheel her to the door so she could wave goodbye, like she always did. she always had to walk us to the door and stand and wave until we were out of sight, down the road. at grandmaās house.
it was tradition. just modified. made possible.
