The Black Curl of a Cat, and Talking to One's Self While Driving

I'm sitting at my old oak dining room table, with my black cat asleep to my right, in a little comfortable black curl, and it's quiet except for rain dripping from the eaves, and it's dark out, and cold in the house. I wear long underwear, and about 8 layers, and my nose is cold, it's a cost saving measure. I haven't turned the heat on yet. Tomorrow for sure, the cat will appreciate it.

I was driving tonight and having a long conversation, with myself, out loud, trying to make sense of things. And I thought- and maybe this isn't too deep but I will share it anyway- how it really isn't about the past, which I dwell on a lot, because one forgets the past, which I notice way more than I ever did before, being 52, and can't recall enough to feel what I once did, to make it matter and its not about the future, which I tend to worry about and it wakes me up, because... well, I cant remember why, but its the obvious, not here yet, etc, nothing to be done about, not predictable, but mostly, its about niether because one feels neither the past or future, neither feeling is on one's skin, right smack on it, and so both lacks reality its dead on right now that matters.

Duh. We all know it.  But for me, despite Buddhist monasteries and hours of trying to sit and follow precepts, its an insight. Received while driving (a form of sitting)- actually, talking out loud. Sometimes I do math problems that way, just to see if I can manage carrying a number from one minute to the next without dropping it, housed just in memory. I can't. It flits away. Its the same concept. I get to hold one number in my head at at time. There is one now at a time, and really, nothing else at all.

I don't mean its what matters in a general way, I mean in a profound way. Not a second ahead, or a second behind.

That's about as profound as I can get, without hiding it in a poem or a painting. I should say, housing it, not hiding it. It gets housed in a painting or a poem. Big difference.

It must be why Jesus spoke in parables, and poets in stanzas, they were more interesting than the bare ass facts. I suppose that this is because Truth and Beauty don't boil down to anything too complicated, but the way we can talk about them is way more interesting. And staying interested matters a lot.  You can count truth on one hand, beauty on two (seems more complicated than truth), but you can tell both in about 75 different ways.

This relates: I'm sure anyone who has animals has thought about their lives-and how its sort of always about Now, and I see this in my cat, who sleeps, now, and then, gets up and stretches, and its on to the next thing. Which unfolds, I would guess, without plan or worry. There's plenty of curiosity, and then there's curling up. And I look at the cat and think- well, why can't i do life more like that?  Its not even my cat. Its a neighbor's cat. I feed it, and I get the benefit of cat insight. He has two bulldogs. I suppose he has different insights.

 

Oxbow, Finish and Starting

 

Its an Oxbow.  A part of the river all on its own, still, mirror like. Left behind to fend for itself. Its not where I usually paint.

Its on the rough Harbor Freight canvas. But its a painting not there yet, I had a lot of distractions, and ended up with a lot of the painting on my hands. So I took it home, and above is how it started out, and below, back in the studio, is how it is now. Still in process.

I work things over in the studio and its like I've brought my paintings back to a torture chamber. I don't know what to do with them, except I know that I am unhappy with the way they are, so I flail on them. I try to punch in the essentials, and get rid of the superfulous, and finally, feeling smug, I see (sometimes much later), that I killed the poor thing. Damn it. Like some evil doctor.

It is such a tenuous process. Somehow, in the field, you are vaguely aware of the colors and values, and general shape, and you hack it out, and hope for the best. In general, this is disappointing, and there is no way that you are going to match what Intelligent Design has spent an eon working on. Well, 4,600 years. But sometimes, a day later when you pull it out of the mess in your truck, you think- well, that sort of looks what i remember. And then- god forbid,( if you lack the skill to do so)- you say: maybe I'll just neaten it up a bit and get it where other people will like it.

And yet- you can't- you're not there any more, in the cold, or hot sun, or rain, or bugs, or whatever it is, just the being there. And whatever little piece of electricity you get from being there, doesn't transfer down your arm and reach into the pallete for the right color, or the right shape, and its like your're painting a flower. I mean literally, you have a flower, and you paint on it, trying to make it look more like a flower. You can't paint a flower better than a flower is already painted.

Then I- and I switch from "you" as I realize that's presumptuous- (you probably have a photo, smart person, and work from that-) I get discouraged and think- well, this is because I was never properly trained in finishing a painting. And when I say that, its like this echoey sound, which resounds in almost anything I seem to do..."finish something", for god's sake. Yet it all remains undone, in flux. I think its the peculiar twist that I, and people like me, have. We're not finishers. We're starters.

There is, in any tiny bit of landscape, a wealth of possibilities. And color. It's true with the whole world: in a microscope, or a telescope, or just looking- there's color and shape and beauty. Which should be enough, but isn't. 

So there's also the motif, the central thing that interests you. and binds the parts into a whole.  It's a thread, at best I think. And carries from one painting to the next, from one year to another. Its somehow in everything, and resounds. And I see this, that in the landscape, I look for my "motif". Its a Cezanne thing, the old curmudgeon, always grappling with his motif. Its the thing that makes my heart beat faster, that intrigues me, and compels. One sets one's easel down on the ground, stomps on the cleats, and tries to untangle the elements. 

In this painting,  there was a long afternoon, and the warm perfection of an October sun, and a lot of thoughts swirling about, about life, and what it means, and being fulfilled, and what that might mean if I ever really figured it out. And with all that going on, I reach for paint, lay it in, look, and smooth things out, blending, destroying detail, looking for where the light is.