Wheels -a peek at the little I know of death.

I have been cleaning up my studio, gathering papers to burn when I found a bit of my writing that caught my attention; 'We are very uncomfortale at the thought of dying,like all creatures on the planet we want to stay alive. We have relied on technology to make our niche, and kept socially adept to survive. In this development we have become more separate from our immediate environment which is percieved instead (not so sure about the instead)as threatening to our existence. Indeed, it is often challenging and ultimately kills us, as the act of breathing the air around us itself, causes oxidization. Our problem of anxiety around dying becomes a greater burden than dying itself, which we know is inevitable. Not accepting this causes estrangement (what do I mean?!!) from ourselves as physiological beings.' I wonder is it that we need to remember that not only does the environment sustain us, we are part of it? Yet we are quite reluctant to accept this obvious truth - think of all the age defying efforts, potions and myths that swarm around us leaving us confused and a little poorer in cash and time. Part of savouring life is acknowledging the connections as a felt, body based, experience in which we can relax and enjoy, revelling in the physical sensations, and positive thoughts and feelings. However, the flip side of this joyousness is quite overwhleming. There is no escaping dying and knowledge of disease, accident and violence are horrifying, adding to the terror of the ravages of aging in sags, wrinkles, aches, arthritic joints, milky eyes and so on. Being in this understandably anxious state about death we are less connected to physical sensations. But oddly there is reprieve as we life still hold gifts whether in sickness, pain or other less than perfect state; we realize it is not so bad, and there is in fact some freedoms. The point is we hang onto the life we have been given. This brings me to the question of being able to die - leaving our physical state, as present as possible rather than in anxiety. This must be the estrangement I wrote of. Can dying be likened to labour? During labour one stays as present as possible to the pain, to feel the effects of birthing for what they are worth, which can be alot. In the other option of panic, of deserting our body, we think we are going to die. To state the obvious our transition to death in the felt sense, is largely unknowable. Is there something greater birthing us into our death, a reverse as it were of our entry? There are such things as death doolahs, who act as midwives of dying making the soon to be corpse as comfortable as possible. Something I am sure about, is that death is messy, a deterioration, and it is the greatest personal mystery that happens to us. I sense the aura of uncanniness belonging to this final stage. We make places to hold a body, and acknowledge a life, even a child may want a grave for its dead guinea pig. Perhaps the grave is a place in which death's unknowableness for a particular sentient being can also dwell. This is what that dead being now holds. What can't be known outside us has a counterpart within us. I have always been curious that if there are things we do know in a rational way; what is the nature of non knowledge or death within us? Rilke sees death as being a fruit; "For we are only the leaf and the bark. The great death which each bears in himself is the fruit around which all revolves." Rilks suggests there is producuction, a fruition as it were, it is an unknown counterpart inside our bodies, not still, but moving in and out into the known, giving impetus to our choices. Or maybe it accompanies our choices like wheels.

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Ready to botch things up- what goes on in my thoughts and body while I paint.

July 11 The de-gluer I had put on ‘mezzanine’ took the paint off in different layers and I am heartened it is better. Before it was over painted. It had had a good moment way back when before now. My shoulders hunch. My mouth is set at the thought. Now the surface is open again and I flip it onto the table. Freedom back in my arms. I repaint the stairs lightly in blue. Keep it light. The railings are too high, but the green is good. I feel my lower back relax. Getting some of those rose tones again, and some white in the ceiling. It's good. My stomach, and below it feel bottomless. In a good way. I eye the far wall- it’s still too close. How can I adjust that? I push the ceiling back, and the gable gets flatter. Is it the wrong angle? I am unsettled. The angle needs to return. My elementary school classmate and doyenne Kelly Taylor’s upper middle class house (it had a powder room in the seventies) and Anselm Kiefer’s attic meet in my mind.

I squint. The rose is still there, that white needs to tone down, a bit of ochre on the stairs to give them solidity, but not too much, so they still float, ooh, but that side aisle is wonky. Use the right colour when you fix it, I coach myself, or you will get side tracked. Maybe the stairs were better ghostly, but the tone was too dark. Damn the ochre has to go. It's not a bloody rainbow. My hand aches a little. I am tired. Time for a cup of tea. I have come back to it after many days. A quiet in September is settling in. I scratch at what remains on my palette. Quite dried up, but the white still lives. The corridor is good, more white right to the back window and some on the wall, plus some sap green. The balustrade looks somewhat attached to the floor, the corner is hard to make sharp. I put a bit of dark at the foot, then the wall goes wonky. Cobalt blue verticals upright it. The paint does not seem to want to stick to my brush. The magenta stairs need to be that blue green. I centre them better and add ochre where the foot goes. The face outward is now blue. I have lost track of the colours from before…. . Below the floor the lower walls recede. Oh, they are too short. Now off kilter. Sam told me about her daughter today, that she has disordered eating. I had just mentioned how I was doing personal boundary exercises with my child who suffers in a similar way. I rage, what is being put upon our girls? Oh, yeah, also Jane at work told me about her daughter….is it fashionable? It is, but us moms talking about it feels more helpful. We are not giving it shock and awe. The truth is sad and too common. Jane shared her challenges as a teen; her mom was critical of her body. Things like this run in the family. That sank into me, as I take in Jane's muscular body and recall how much physical appearance had mattered in my family. I am very grateful of her bravery to talk of this which feels so shameful. There is a lot of green now. I keep using the same brush, enjoying the grab and give, but different colours are needed. White on the one upper vault, on the side windows, and at the bottom is ok. I jiggle a bit. I yawn fiercely several times. It was a long day. Now I am here and am happy, but too tired. Typical. The stairs are angling up weirdly. I block them in with the green. Bring in white to take down the sides. Now it is ok. They are more integrated. I wanted them to float, but this is better. They zig up convincingly. I won’t be on them but something will be. They are perfect, if I can keep the background behaving. My brush feels careless at times, dangerous. Ready to botch things up. The fun is irresistible, but on the whole not worth it, and I have to keep the galloping to small doses. My body tingles at resisting. But any thoughts of following a less precise path feels like mud in my head. I look again, the whole thing is too green now. Hah. I scrub at the hardened acid yellow on my plastic palette. It gives way and now it leads me to the furthest back corridor. It may need a wall to be convincing enough. Not another wall! My shoulders hunch. There is an open basement door to the left, and the outdoors can be seen, without a horizon. Ahhh. My eyes are itchy. I rub them, making it worse. Probably a bit of paint on my fingers.