Although I thought to work on my next episode of Abbandonata today, the hand drawn animation episode, instead I keep delaying it. The last episode had my character having the emotional equivalent of suicide in a fire. The next episode goes into the “fire,” the edge of it, the beginning of one of Dante’s rings of Hell (figuratively speaking).
Maybe it’s not such a surprise that I’m letting this next episode marinate a bit more … As it is, I have to cope with my own intensity every day, for the last five or so months it has been much more of a trip into emotional fire than not, and I haven’t been able to walk out of the movie theater and go home to a more pacific reality (because I can’t walk out of the movie theater that is myself). One has to learn to deal with one’s own internal tidal waves, paths of broken glass, depressions akin to kneeling before a gravestone in some foggy Victorian landscape, black from head to foot in mourning, and helpless existentialist epiphanies that leave one paralyzed, unable to explain or ask for help. It’s not an audience experience. I do struggle to hold my head above the water which keeps beckoning me downward, downward.
So, ahem, today, I cooked soup. I picked up my knitting again. I watched some silly ’50s movies based in Italy that happened to be on the TV (always romance involved, depressingly corny but ok, the stuff of the 4:00 movie hour, or when you had the flu in school). I took a break from my street photography mission and looked a little at more of it by others, but not too much. I took very few photos, none of much importance. The one above, as proof that on this unusually chilly and drizzly early May day in this drought-ridden state, that it’s still not too cold to continue with a thick, lace knit throw with giant needles which I kind of have to wrestle with, because there are a lot of stitches, and put together they make a thick and somewhat unwieldy fabric on aluminum needles. Above on my arm is also a hand made leather cuff that I bought at an art fair in Burbank, the same day I went to see an excellent artist friend of mine in his booth, selling beautiful prints – i.e. prints from printmaking, not photography.
The woman who sold it to me said, “Do you know what that one’s called?”
I said naturally, “No…”
“It’s called Midnight Urban Cowgirl.”
Heh… “Yeah, that’s totally me!” I said.
Midnight – like there goes the midnight bell, this is when the ghosts come out.
Urban – places that are deserted, lit by fluorescent street lamps. Everything in the dark corners is unknown, and possibly deadly.
Cowgirl. Now that one’s got me stuck. Yee-haw? Um, probably not. Gunfight? Only if I never miss my aim. Otherwise I’ll just deal with the cattle and horses, if you don’t mind. Oh uh, out of place in “society?” Belongs to some semi-wild landscape? Maybe…
All I know is that it’s black. It has a single flower stamped on it, with leaves on each side. The flower is painted with blood red, prominent in the center, fading on its petals. It’s wide, but they had to alter it to fit my child’s wrist. It has a single snap button. I was drawn to it because it’s vaguely goth, and therefore gloomy.
Finally, above that is the soft yarn cuff I made to hold a steel ornament that is stamped with my particular medical affliction. Hopefully if I ever get wheeled into an ambulance, the paramedics will turn it over and see that I am absolutely insulin dependent.
Here’s to cheer and balance, keeping one’s so-called chin up, marching onward, into who knows what, dying with one’s boots on (I guess they’d have to match my cuff), etc. etc. and all that crap.
I see that I managed to write one blog entry on the internet today. That’s enough.
Odilonvert 