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January 01, 2005
its about time
Look out Knit-A-Log readers! Its the first Knit-A-Log of 2005, and I'm on my second pot of coffee!
It was a rather quiet New Year's Eve, I thought, but fun. Everyone who knew where the coolest people, best food, and lots of excellent wine brought by tasteful worldly types who know from wine were to be found showed up at (internationally famous best selling novelist and *my personal friend*) Audrey's. Not only were the people beautiful, quirky, and, I have to add, impeccably accessorized, but the taxidermied animals were too! Audrey's collection thus far includes (and this list is probably incomplete) a woodchuck, (splendidly attired for the occasion in silver holiday ribbon couture) a badger, an owl in flight, an armadillo, a squirrel, various alligator parts, as well as one whole small alligator, a turtle, which is my current favorite, and finally, the one I fully expect Audrey to leave me in her will~ a gorgeously feathered kitchen chicken. How will my chicken kitchen be complete without one? I am insane with envy. Someday, someday I will have one too!!
Anyway, there was much lively conversation with old friends and new, much of it about art and etching in particular, which left me with an itchy scraper finger, which sounds disgusting. Not to worry! Its not a disease!! I will be okay, and maybe, just maybe I will draw something, which would be nice for a change. We'll see.
Oh, and two people, 2!, guessed my age when I told them it had been my birthday. Neither one guessed I could be older than 35, (one had an inkling I was older than I looked) one said 27, the other 28. Well! Maybe they were just being polite, and I was being silly from wine, but it made me feel much better about this whole birthday thing. Especially in light of Thomas having pointed out to me earlier in the day that not only was I now a prime number (which is fine) but also in my Late Thirties. Not middle thirties anymore. Thanks, Thomas!
This morning I was laying in bed watching the squirrels who visit the dumpster below my bedroom window. Which made me think of unseen, unappreciated goings-on in general. Maybe, I thought, there are these 11 dimensions and we are blind bottomfeeders in the universe. Oh! For eyes in the palms of my hands! For octopus suckers on the insides of my arms! To experience the world that much more deeply I would wrap my 8 arms around everything!
Looking at tsunami pictures online I was aware of staring at people through all of these layers, the camera, the internet, the monitor. And here I was having this need to stare at this wreckage, in that way that we all tend to stare at wreckage. It seems wherever there is wreckage there is the urge to stare. Is it because is makes me feel lucky, or puny, or glad to be alive? Is it because I want to know about forces beyond my control but not have to experience them? Do people stare at wreckage because we are trying to learn something about death to make us less scared of it? Within reason it can be beautiful to see everything that is familiar turned upside down. Then new things have to grow out of it, and old things are remembered, embellished, mourned, and also transformed, in a way which is beautiful and appalling. I saw photos of Indian women mourning, their hands outstretched, their faces contorted with pain, and there was no question they were beautiful. There was a funeral for 5 Indian schoolchildren in caskets with windows in them to view their faces, and a crowd gathered around to mourn. On an Indian beach workers hoisted the giant wooden spokes and gears of a broken ferris wheel.
Even now the New Year is swallowing us up and moving us along.
Time is collapsing and expanding like an accordion.
Can you feel it??
Posted by at January 1, 2005 10:46 AM
Comments
Yes, yes I can.
In spite of it all, in spite of the wreckage, the pain, the fact that we are, indeed, blind bottomfeeders... Well... you've got it right, I think. In spite of it all, how beautiful...how absolutely beautiful...
Posted by: Cari at January 1, 2005 09:19 PM
I get the same feeling from certain aspects of the Iraq war coverage. Especially the french coverage, the words put you at the distance of love (some directors term) and the carnage is transformed. It is akin to one of Rilke's angels putting on something to stop the heart from bursting when they draw close. That great wave was like the reflex of one of those immortals who know how to kill, a giant in an electronic mask.
Posted by: Juan Jorges Jesus at January 3, 2005 11:47 AM