The Dark and the Damp

An unexpected day off, start a fire, have coffee, almost the same start to every day in the winter. I water all of the plants in the house before the boys are out the door, and I think about my relationship with all of these various growing green things. They would all wither and die if I didn’t water and visit them at least once a week, nobody else waters them, Inamorata loves them, but they’re not on her responsibility radar.

This year I make sure the fig trees get enough water to really produce fruit. Last year they needed more water. I did get to eat a few figs though which was great. The olive tree is blooming right now, and it almost seems like one olive is slowly forming, a tiny green orb below one of the white flowers. This is the first time it has happened.

I paint most of the morning, working on large 4’x6’ canvases, taking numerous yoga breaks, focusing on a total spine reboot, lengthening it, giving it more space, moving the gravity crushing sacral pain up the spine, hanging from the floor trusses, body weight stretching it all, remembering what it is to live comfortably in a strong and flexible body. I miss it.

On the painting front, the figurative battles abstraction, and I know abstraction will slowly win.

I get out the typewriter and find some old pages, reluctant to share them here, but think it’s entertaining. In 2024 I was clearly attracted to and finding things in damp dark places, natural and from my own hand.

I just deleted a sentence because it was too intimate. It was about one of these places on the mountain, so hard to get too, so magically green, an experience words will always lessen. I’ve only been there once, and have not sought it out again, though I did mark a waypoint on the GPS. Lol.

You have to be careful with any knowledge or wisdom the mountain gives you, it is a fragile thing. There is power there, but only with humility, if a speck of pride enters, prepare for a bitch slap in some form or another.

Messes are puzzles.

If you can believe it, I’m still cleaning up messes I left 17 years ago.

In 2016 I built a cellar from field stone (gneiss and schist), steel, and concrete. I was temporarily insane, and went through two full pallets of Quikrete, mixing two 80 lb bags at a time, working on it all summer. I was rugged and lean and knew the pain of cement burns on my fingers and hips.