During the past 79 days I’ve been involved in two accidents; one in a Honda Element the other on a bicycle. The automobile accident occurred late November while driving home from a holiday gathering up north. As for the bicycle crash, the cuts and bruises remain visible since it happened just last weekend. This two wheeled misadventure has lead me to a place of deeper introspection, including frustration, anxiety, head shaking, discouragement and resolve evolving from never mounting a bike again to my current attitude to get astride my repaired turquoise beauty to spite my panicky anxious nervous self.  Fuck the fear – well more accurately – learn from it then fuck it’s paralyzing effects, sit your ass on the saddle and peddle out of the paranoia. Not an effortless job for this one. Most of the time, facing what are for me, challenging tasks wear me out as I seem to experience a plethora of roadblocks, whether real or imagined.

Ok, so first taking a closer look at the Nov 29th accident involving a young uninsured unlicensed in a hurry teen. My love is driving, I’m chilling in the front passenger seat looking forward to being home in about 30 minutes – thinking of the to do’s before work the next day.  Slam, crash, spin, twirl, bang and bang bang bang again and again until my love somehow, in the midst of heavy traffic, guides us to the shoulder of I35 just north of 635.  Oh, forgot to mention all the expletives pouring out of my mouth in response to the surprise hit. Ha!  When I look back behind our vehicle I see two parked cars followed by people getting out of both. An evaluation of the situation ensues, contradictions left and right and after some time doors slam we drive off. Yeah, the Element makes it home.

Did I mention our two standard poodles survived as well?  We all left the scene physically unscathed.  In the passing days, though, my mood darkened. I began wondering when the next mishap/unwelcome surprise might arise. Fuck. I’m instantly back at 5. I’m not 5 but I’m there in that place where chaos and unsettled dust fill the air. Work becomes overly burdensome, everyone is an enemy, the jaw is getting a workout and my molars ache like hell.  Life shrinks to 10 square miles and 12 hour days. Adding to the misery our uninsured insurance provides a few thousand for the totaled Element. We’re down to one car.  Not a horrific hardship really, but a fucking annoyance to be given the responsibility for some else’s careless reckless choice/lack of choice resulting in trauma to the Element, the pups and us. Big fucking deal.

We move through the other holidays which do end up bringing some bright light but avoiding my shit mood isn’t really helping. Until I hop on the bike. It’s a hand me down that works. Yeah, there is some vulnerability and mis-sized comfort but it get’s me out on the streets with the intention to get over my fear filled anxiety connected to the asphalt and those shitty MF drivers, who honestly seem to be kinder to cyclists than I remember.

Ready for the next crash?  No, I didn’t get hit by any type of vehicle while riding my bike, omg that would have, idk, possibly done me in. I wrecked myself. The day was fresh and roads slightly wet with delicious rain. Riding my new bike, yes, new and fitting like a glove, heading to cross over the Trinity River over a bridge to downtown, I crashed. Newbie that I am, trying to be quick, getting out of the traffic, I carefully and swiftly switched lanes then was on the ground. First hit was the head; thanks love for pushing me to spend more than I’m usually willing for a protective helmet. This part is weird to write, but yeah, I looked down on myself seeing me lying on the asphalt holding the handlebars twisted and jammed into my arm and side.  There I was, pitiful little pile of me. Why is my bike wheel backwards? Why is my body on the ground? Gathered back together I remembered the fucking rail confluence…rather streetcar MF rail lines all coming together in one spot.  That is where I fucked up.  I switched lanes on a slick road day. The transition from asphalt to asphalt metal rails all in one spot.

Right fucking there, I crashed.  Black and blue, bleeding, bloody, lacerated fingers, palms and knees – I suppose not an attractive sight.  I’m aware though, that’s a good sign.  Looking around I see people looking at me. And…that’s it. They’re rubbernecking a bike crash. WTF?!? Still on the ground I am staring at someone staring back at me. Deep breath, I try and succeed to push myself up, get up, twirl the front wheel back and limp to the sidewalk where I sit for a couple seconds assessing my state. Clearly I’m not unconscious and am able to move myself to the CVS just a few hundred feet away. The pharmacist is horrified, grabs gauze and hydrogen peroxide. Cleaned up and ready to call my love I head out.

Other than deep scrapes and cuts as well as ugly as hell bruises that cover most of my left arm, I’m physically unscathed; no broken bones or brain injuries. But my mood is foul. These accidents harken back to “ancient” aches of being caught off guard, unaware of what might be next. Wounds like these seem impossible to mend – we forget they exist, are profound and oftentimes unrecognizable. Yet, honest to god, I need a challenge.  IF this is today’s test, then ok. Perhaps it seems trivial, ridiculous, complaining or completely narcissistic – ok. Well, even though my bruised body and mind isn’t ready to straddle the seat of the cycle but I will soon. And most likely I’ll crash again. I have to get back up on the seat otherwise my mind might fool me into complacency. That won’t fucking do.

https://www.e-flux.com/journal/92/

Claudia Lars…Margarita del Carmen Brannon Vega is her birth name; she is also called Carmen Brannon Beers or Carmen Brannon de Samoya Chinchilla. She was born in El Salvador. She studied and lived in the United States, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.

Her early work in the 1920s and 1930s was compared to Agustini, Mistral, Storni, and Ibarbourou. She lists as her early influences Cervantes, Fray Luís de León, Lope de Vega, Quevedo, Góngora, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Burns, Coleridge, Whitman, Poe, Dickinson, Shelley, Byron, Yeats, Blake, and Darío (Barraza 142). Critics called her a lyrical postmodernist.

Sketch of the Woman of the Future

Standing tall in the mud.
Not like the flower’s stalk
and butterfly’s desire . . .
No roots, no flitting,
more erect, more sure
and more free.

Knower of shadow and thorn,
With miracle held high
in her triumphant arms.
With obstacle and abyss.
beneath her stride.

Absolute queen of her flesh
returned to the center of her spirit:
vessel of the celestial,
domus aurea, home of the golden;
clod where shoots burst forth into
maize and fragrant flower.

Forgotten: the Mona Lisa’s smile.
Broken: the spell of centuries.
Conquered: the fears.
Bright and naked in the pure, clean day.

Unequalled lover
in enjoyment of a love so lofty
that no one today could predict it.
Sweet,
with controlled sweetness
that doesn’t hurt or intoxicate the drinker.

Maternal still,
without the caress that holds back flight
nor tenderness that traps,
nor submission and giving in, that little by little, smothers.

Pioneer of the clouds.
Guide to the labyrinth.
Weaver of veil and song.
Adorned only in her simplicity.

She stands up from the dust . . .
Not like the flowering stem
that’s not so beautiful.

Marleine Bastien

Perspectives. Dialectical conversations are crucial to intellectual growth, diplomacy, artistic strength, and a whole host of ways in being human.  Simply put, it is a method of philosophical argument that involves some sort of contradictory process between opposing sides; not necessarily winner vs. loser, but learning, defining, clarity, exchange, analysis, problem solving, which leads to deeper understanding and hopefully a more expansive comprehension of a matter.

The posts begin…

Very few of us intend to beat our head against a wall; it happens. When it does there is a point when it becomes crucial to stop.  This post is about the stopping.

STOP – ceasing a particular activity with an inherent beginning of a new one, stepping away. For quite a long time I was blinded to the fact that one of the most significant and valuable activities I might embrace was to basically end one. Not implying this was easy or simple, it just is.  This HALT gave room for the next act, taking one leg moving it to one side and following with the other. Not a dance, though it could be called one, nor a race of any sense of the work, merely a step from, thus, a step to. That’s it.

As a graduate student I felt and was in a race to catch up. Having primarily studied religion rather than philosophy, my perspective on most every matter other than religion was sorely crippled.  Had we remained in Seattle, Washington throughout my high school and college years I imagine most artists and thinkers immersed in Lacan, Adorno, Benjamin, Arendt, Rawls, Butler, Beauvoir, Bachelard, Nussbaum and more than need be listed here. Yet, knowing that this may not have been the case, most definitely attending high school (1970’s) and college (1980’s) in rural Texas, part of the “Bible Belt” not only lacked opportunities of study in the liberal arts, but more so, in my midst there were few if any conversations on life other than the saving power of Jesus Christ. To fit in, I bought it all, swallowing it whole, spewing out bits and pieces throughout my young adult years.

The primary and ultimate power was based on fear; if I didn’t believe in that ultimate overseer my life would be condemned to pain, suffering, and eternal punishment. Dread The Word, Truth, submission, denial, insecurity, uncertainty, controlled, with my permission. Battling weariness, numbing the human spirit, body, soul, mind seemed to stabilize until the disconnection became paralyzing.  Power given over to predestination; fate prevails.

https://aeon.co/essays/why-foucaults-work-on-power-is-more-important-than-ever?preview=true

On sabbatical, hiatus, furlough, leave of absence, recess, break, time off, terms typically used by those who are doing just that from a job or work or something they are doing to take leave of. As for me, my hiatus, has been more like a gap or opening between my life pre-graduate school and about a year following. Something inside me shifted. I’ve stopped trying to figure out why; it just did. In the process of this shift one significant friend died, one moved away, my paternal grandmother passed away (carrying with her stories we will never hear), I seemed to have lost a great deal of my passion for many things, and I felt overlooked, misunderstood, under appreciated, and an absolute loserfailureidiotfatslobtoopolitenotworthyourtimeartistreject. Perhaps my solution was to move. I’ve always dreamed to move back to Seattle. Jim is open to it. But that could be running away. What about NYC, LA, OKC, Chi-Town, or anywhere else but Texas!?!

I’ve been isolating myself from those I know, well those I’ve been socializing with at art openings and such. Tiring of the bullshit that can happen. Not blaming anyone really, but myself; getting caught up in my insecurities. Taking risks and chances, doing things to “help” me seem interesting. No more. This isn’t real. Not me. I hate that this was done to me, to you. I’m not really self-righteous, I’m a true introvert and shy and better at home making art, writing, having pot lucks and small groups over for dinner, or doing yoga and meditating. Or better yet, hiking in the woods or swimming in a clear stream or the waters of the South Pacific. I’m not lonely at all. The air is sweet.

Here’s the thing. I’m just more me now. It fits.

More to come.

At times we creatives experience a kind of emptiness, a sense of creative sterility or perhaps a period of brain rest. This describes how I have been overall during the past few months. It is easy to slip into feelings of guilt or shame especially considering the money spent on graduate school. Yet those two agitators must quickly have their say and then be successfully calmed so that we can say so long for now you killjoys you malcontents! In this process, I am able to see what is actually happening. I am reading, watching, listening, laughing, hiking, gathering, creating, living each and every day. Sometimes it looks like lying on the couch to watch a documentary or read a good novel. Others could be stirring a pot of milk on the stovetop until it reaches 185 degrees fahrenheit and then spoil it with a culture in order to transform it to a yummy treat. In addition, working for another aids in the process of my walking through the haze.

There is more to come. For now – done here.

SB+C
Beefhaus